Rituxan Maintenance

Yesterday, the FDA approved Rituxan Maintenance for Follicualr Lymphoma. This means that patients will be allowed to get Rituxan every six months after they are finished with a Rituxan-containing chemotherapy. The approval was based on the results of the PRIMA study, a phase 3 clinical trial with patients from all over the world. It meaured the effects of Rituxan maintenance after R-CHOP or R-CVP, and found that those infusions of Rituxan helped double the likelihood that the lymphoma would not get worse over two years.

It's always nice to have something like this that will help keep fNHL in check. It was something I asked Dr. R about after I was finished with my single-agent Rituxan treatment. We decided not to do it, partly because there's less evidence that it's effective after just Rituxan (as opposed to Rituxan + chemotherapy), and also because it went against our approach of doing the least amount necessary to keep things at bay. So I stuck with just observing -- basically, going back to watching and waiting -- rather than doing something more aggressive, even something as "unaggressive" as Rituxan.

So while this is excellent news, I don't think it's earth-shattering news. For one thing, it doesn't represent a new way of attacking fNHL -- just of keeping in in check. Also, lots of people have been doing Rituxan maintenance on their own, even without FDA approval (though I think it might be easier to get it paid for by insurance now).

So we'll call it good news, but keep the champagne in the bottle for something really good...