From ASH

Next week, the annual ASH conference takes place in Orlando. That's the American Society of Hematology -- all those great researchers who are working on blood diseases, including lymphomas. There are usually a ton of great papers every year reporting on research related to follicular lymphoma. I'm going to try to highlight some over the next week or so.

This first one doesn't necessarily affect me anymore, but I think it's pretty significant. It's called "An Intergroup Randomised Trial of Rituximab Versus a Watch and Wait Strategy In Patients with Stage II, III, IV, Asymptomatic, Non-Bulky Follicular Lymphoma (Grades 1, 2 and 3a). A Preliminary Analysis." When the title is that long, you can just imagine how complicated the rest of the abstract is, huh?

But really, it's pretty simple. The researchers wanted to investigate a question that's been asked about a long time. The question is, If watching and waiting is meant to buy some time between treatments, is it still necessary now that Rituxan can do such a great job buying time for us instead?

The researchers looked at 3 groups of patients who might traditionally employ a watch and wait strategy. One group did watch and wait, the second was given 4 rounds of Rituxan, and the third was given 4 rounds of Rituxan and then Rituxan maintenance (more every 6 months). You can read the abstract for yourself, but basically, those who had Rituxan went longer than the watchers until they needed treatment again.

So, as I said, it's not something that affects me anymore, but it's important for fNHL folks in general, especially newbies. The study isn't definitive, but it's going to be enough to get oncologists thinking about their strategy, I'm sure. And it's one more reason to be impressed with Rituxan.