Is Rituximab Needed With High Dose Chemotherapy and Autologous Stem Cell Transplant When Patients With Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Have Been Exposed To It?

The value of Rituximab with High dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplant (auto-HCT) has been evaluated in some retrospective studies. It is noted that the addition Rituximab to auto-HCT results in significant improvement in overall (OS) and disease free survival (DFS). However, it is unclear that the addition of Rituximab with auto-HCT would result in significant benefit in patients who have received prior Rituximab based therapy.

We retrospectively evaluated twenty seven consecutive patients who had B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and underwent auto- HCT at Markey cancer center between January 2010 and December 2012. All patients received 375 mg/m²of Rituximab with chemotherapy. Rituximab was not administered with high dose chemotherapy (BEAM: BCNU, Etoposide, Cytarabine and Melphalan) prior to auto-HCT. All patients received GCSF starting day 5 after auto-HCT.

There were 27 patients who underwent auto-HCT for NHL. Median age of the patients was 60 years (36-72 years). Nineteen patients were male and 8 patients were female. Fifteen patients were in complete remission (CR) and the rest were in partial remission (PR). Patients had: Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL=11 patients): Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL=13 patients): follicular lymphoma (3 patients). Median CD 34 count of infused cells was 4.14 x 10⁶ cell/kg (2.26- 9.45). Median time to neutrophil recovery was 11 days (9-14). Median lymphocyte count at day 30 after auto HCT was 1130 x 10 ⁶/l (320- 5180). After a median follow up of 7.9 months (3.0- 32.4) eight patients had relapsed. Five patients who had relapsed had refractory disease before auto-HCT. Non -Relapse mortality (NRM) is shown in figure 1. Median overall survival and disease free survival were not reached. Seventy percent patients had not relapsed. We did not find any factors associated with relapse.

Figure 1

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Figure 1

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We performed a retrospective study to evaluate the impact of Rituximab with high dose chemotherapy and in patients with NHL. Review of literature showed that median 2 year and 5 year OS was 80% and 69% in patients who received Rituximab with auto HCT. Median 2 year DFS was 67%. In our study 70% patients were relapse free at a median follow up of 8 months. We would need a longer follow up to determine the efficacy of Rituximab with auto- HCT in patients with NHL who had prior exposure to Rituximab.

Off Label Use: The use of Thymoglobulin® for GVHD prevention. Hayslip:Sanofi: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding; Pfizer: Research Funding; Celgene: Research Funding.