By Ashwin, UK Correspondent, [RxPG] Results from a recent study indicate that patients under the age of 60 with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma who are treated with both the antibody therapy rituximab and chemotherapy had improved survival rates when compared with patients treated with chemotherapy alone. The lead author of the study, Dr. Michael Pfreundschuh, presented these findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncologys 2004 Annual Meeting. The randomized study, which was conducted in eighteen countries, is unique because it is one of the first to focus on the use of rituximab in patients who are under 60 years oldprevious studies have reported positive results for elderly patients. As explained by Dr. Pfreundschuh at the meeting, individuals who were treated with a combination of rituximab and chemotherapy achieved the best results ever reported for young patients with this disease. This treatment group had a significantly higher complete remission rate and a lower rate of progressive disease than patients who were treated with only chemotherapy. This indicates that there is a potential for this form of lymphoma to be considered curable in this set of patients if the studys positive results can be consistently replicated. Dr. Pfreundschuh is the Director of Medical Oncology at Saarland University Medical School, Homburg, Germany, and is a member of the Institutes Cancer Antigen Discovery Collaborative. He was the recipient of the 2000 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology.
