B. Dorken

Rituximab (Rituxan) has shown high activity in relapsed follicular lymphomas when given alone, and phase II studies indicate that its addition to chemotherapy may further improve response rates substantially. Because prospective randomized studies have not been available so far, the German Low Grade Study Group (GLSG) started a multicenter national trial in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular cell lymphoma (FCL) or mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). As patients were treated for first-line therapy with CHOP (cyclophosphamide [Cytoxan, Neosar], doxorubicin HCl, vincristine [Oncovin], prednisone), the FCM (fludarabine [Fludara], cyclophosphamide, mitoxantrone [Novantrone]) combination was chosen for salvage chemotherapy.