In a European Intergroup for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma/Children’s Oncology Group phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Véronique Minard‑Colin, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, Université Paris-Saclay, Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that the addition of rituximab to standard Lymphomes Malin de Burkitt (LMB) chemotherapy significantly improved event-free and overall survival in children with high-risk, mature B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.¹ Rituximab/chemotherapy was associated with numerically higher rates of severe febrile neutropenia and infection and a significantly higher rate of low immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels.

Some monuments are difficult to topple. At least that was the case dating back to 1976, when investigators from the Southwest Oncology Group demonstrated the importance of doxorubicin in the treatment of patients with a group of lymphoid malignancies then referred to as diffuse aggressive lymphomas. Thus, the legend of CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) was born.

In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Caron A. Jacobson, MD, and colleagues found that commercial use of the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma was associated with an overall response rate similar to that reported in the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial. However, complete response rates, duration of response, and other efficacy outcomes were better among patients who would have met ZUMA-1 eligibility requirements.

A longitudinal analysis of health-related quality of life in patients from German Hodgkin Study Group trials, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kreissl et al, showed a “high and persistent” amount of health-related quality-of-life deficits in survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma. The deficits appeared to be independent of the treatment received.

In an Australian study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Piercey et al found that routine blood tests have little utility in detecting relapse or progression of disease during active surveillance of patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.