RESUMO
The treatment options for patients with follicular lymphoma have substantially improved in the last years, in particular with the development of innovative, antibody-based therapeutic strategies. Thus, the anti-CD20 antibody rituximab is one of the cornerstones in the therapy of follicular lymphoma today. It is used in combination with chemotherapy or as a single agent therapy for remission induction and as maintenance therapy. Encouraging results were also reported from monoclonal anti-CD20 antibodies, which are conjugated to radionuclides and exploit the high radiosensitivity of lymphomas. An example for this is the anti-CD20 antibody ibritumomab tiuxetan, which is coupled to 90Yttrium and shows comparable activity to rituximab. Current trials are underway testing whether, for example, the sequential application of a rituximab/chemotherapy induction, myeloablative consolidation therapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation and rituximab maintenance further improves the therapeutic outcome in follicular lymphoma, or even has curative potential in a subgroup of patients with this disease.