The impact of total body irradiation on the outcome of patients with follicular lymphoma treated with autologous stem-cell transplantation in the modern era: a retrospective study of the EBMT Lymphoma Working Party.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the high-dose regimen on the outcome of patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) having had autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT) in a recent time period. PATIENTS: Between 1995 and 2007, 2233 patients with FL had their first ASCT with either a total body irradiation (TBI)-containing regimen or carmustin, etoposide, cytarabine and melphalan (BEAM), of which 47% were autografted in first remission. RESULTS: After a median observation time of 73 months (interquartile range 30-107), 5- and 10-year non-relapse mortality (NRM) was similar (6% and 10% in both groups). No significant NRM differences became evident after multivariate adjustment for confounders. Secondary malignancies were observed in 9.7% and 7.9% of the patients after TBI and BEAM (P = 0.19), which were treatment-related myelodysplastic syndromes/acute myelogenous leukaemia (t-MDS/AML) in 3.4% and 2.8% (P = 0.57). The median time to t-MDS/AML was around 50 months in both groups. Because of a lower relapse incidence, TBI was associated with better event-free survival reaching statistical significance in the patients transplanted in first remission but not in those transplanted beyond first remission. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with FL who received TBI-based ASCT after 1995 increased NRM and t-MDS/AML risks did not emerge compared with BEAM while disease control was at least equivalent.

The role of FDG-PET and bone marrow examination in lymphoma staging.

The introduction of positron emission tomography using [F-18]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) has had a substantial impact on the management of patients with lymphoma. Increasing numbers of patients are having an FDG-PET study as part of their initial staging, despite FDG-PET cannot be considered yet a standard procedure for staging in many types of lymphoma. FDG-PET has demonstrated its superiority over conventional imaging to identify nodal and extra-nodal sites of disease and provides complementary information to that obtained with bone marrow biopsy. This can result in disparities in the staging and prognostication of patients based on the procedures used to assess the extension of the disease. The difficulty lies in how to use the information provided by FDG-PET to communicate effectively when using staging classifications and prognostic indices that were designed following conventional imaging.