Research Bcell

Considerations in relapsed/refractory fNHL patients

fNHL is an incurable disease that typically involves periods of disease remission after first-line treatment. This remission is usually followed by a succession of relapses in subsequent lines of treatment, with each relapse having a shorter duration of response^32-34
Disease transformation to a more aggressive histologic type occasionally occurs. For more information, please refer to the Transformed fNHL section under DLBCL¹³
Generally, treatment options after relapse remain the same as for first-line therapy. However, for the individual patient, the choice of therapy in the relapsed setting is highly dependent on the patient's response to previous treatments¹³
- With a relatively long course of disease, patients with fNHL face some risk of cumulative toxicities from upfront treatments, which may factor into the treatment strategy³⁰
  - For example, myelodysplastic syndrome and secondary acute myelogenous leukemia have been recognized as significant complications of treatments, such as high dose chemotherapies and autologous stem cell transplantation¹³
  - If autologous stem cell transplantation is considered a potential treatment option for a particular patient, care in the selection of prior treatments should be made to maintain stem cell reserve¹³