Looking Back at the Rituxin Era

The Follicular Lymphoma Foundation published a short article by its Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mitchell Smith, looking back at the "Rituxan Era" in Follicular Lymphoma. It's aimed at patients, and it has a very hopeful message.

The Follicular Lymphoma Foundation was started just a few years ago, with the main purpose of trying to cure Follicular Lymphoma. the foundation raises money and the  gives it to researchers to help them keep their work going. You can read more about them at their link.

Dr. Smith wrote his article, "25 Years in FL -- The Rituximab Era," in response to the article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology last month that celebrated the 25th anniversary of Rituxan being used as a single agent for Follicular lymphoma patients. Rituxan (also known as rituximab and Mabthera) has been a hugely important treatment for FL patients. There have been great improvements in Overall Survival and Progression Free Survival for FL patients since Rituxan was introduced. (To give you an example, when I was diagnosed 15 years ago, the median Overall Survival for FL patients was considered to be 8-10 years, and that was based on old data from before Rituxan's approval. Now it's generally considered to be about 18-20 years.)

When researchers look back at the history of FL, they often talk about the "Rituxan Era." Chemotherapy became widely used after World War II, so we had about 50 years of the "Chemotherapy era." With Rituxan's approval, we are now 25 years into the "Rituxan Era." (It will be fascinating to see what cancer historians have to say 25 years from now -- are we in the "CAR-T Era" and we don't even realize it? I plan to be around in 25 years, so I'll let you know.)

In his article, Dr. Smith shows just how influential Rituxan has been. Think about it. Rituxan can be sued as a single agent, by itself (which is how I had it, and it's given me 13 years of not needing treatment). It has been recognized as making traditional chemotherapy better (which is why most patients get R-CHOP instead of CHOP, or R-B instead of just Bendamustine). It was the basis for RIT, RadioImmunoTherapy, where a small drop of radiation is attached to Rituxan, and then delivered to cancerous cells. And now it's the basis for bi-specifics, where a Rituxan-like antibody can deliver a T cell directly to the cancer cells.

Check the links to the RIT and bi-specifics. They're both from 2022. Rituxan continues to play a huge roll in Follicualr Lymphoma treatment.

And that doesn't even get into the other monoclonal antibodies and biosimilars that are based on Rituxan.

Pretty amazing. 

In the past, I've written in this blog about "My Best Friend Rituxan." I was being playful, but it's clear that we all owe a huge debt to this treatment, and to the many many people who have done research on it -- and continue to do research.