Burden of illness and outcomes in second-line large B-cell lymphoma treatment: real-world analysis of Medicare beneficiaries.

Lay abstract Large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) is an aggressive form of cancer. Although chemotherapy is often initially successful, LBCL recurs in about 50% of patients. For many years, the standard of care for recurrent LBCL has been a course of strong chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplant (SCT). However, many older patients cannot tolerate or do not respond well to chemotherapy and therefore cannot proceed to SCT. In this real-world study of Medicare patients, we found that only 5.1% of patients with recurrent LBCL ever received potentially curative SCT. They also had higher healthcare costs than similar patients who did receive SCT. This shows a significant unmet need in elderly LBCL patients that may potentially be addressed with recent treatment innovations.