Zevalin May Improve Outcomes after Chemotherapy for Follicular Lymphoma

Most individuals with follicular lymphoma are diagnosed in an advanced stage, requiring chemotherapy for treatment. Although follicular lymphoma is a slowly growing disease, most patients who require chemotherapy eventually have their disease start growing back slowly within a year or two.

Zevalin is an agent that belongs to a class of treatment called Radioimmunotherapy. This kind of treatment combines radiation with monoclonal antibody treatment. Zevalin has been recently reported to benefit patients with follicular lymphoma when they relpase following chemotherapy. A recently reported trial that used Zevalin as a sort of consolidation treatment immediately after chemotherapy for follicular lymphoma has demonstrated excellent results. More than 75% of those who had a partial response to chemotherapy had a complete response after Zevalin. Disease progression after chemotherapy was delayed three times longer in those who had received Zevalin. All of these came at little or no excess of side-effects.

These encouraging results may result in a change of treatment policies and result in incorporation of Zevalin as a part of first line treatment of advanced stage follicular lymphoma whenever it is available.