Open Access

ARTICLE

Bendamustine and rituximab as frontline therapy in extranodal marginal zone lymphoma: a single-institution experience

by CONSTANTINE N. LOGOTHETIS¹, NATHAN P. HORVAT², TONY KURIAN³, CELESTE BELLO³, JULIO CHAVEZ³, LEIDY ISENALUMHE³, BIJAL SHAH³, LUBOMIR SOKOL³, HAYDER SAEED³, JAVIER PINILLA³, SAMEH GABALLA^3,*

1 Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33602, USA
2 College of Medicine, University of South Florida Morsani, Tampa, FL, 33602, USA
3 H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

* Corresponding Author: SAMEH GABALLA. Email:

Oncology Research 2024, 32(6), 1031-1036. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2024.046885

Received 18 October 2023; Accepted 28 March 2024; Issue published 23 May 2024

Abstract

Extranodal marginal zone lymphoma (EMZL) encompasses 70% of cases of marginal zone lymphoma. Frontline bendamustine and rituximab (BR) were derived from trials involving other indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. Only one trial has evaluated frontline BR prospectively in EMZL. This retrospective study reports outcomes among EMZL patients receiving frontline BR. Twenty-five patients were included with a median age of 69 years (40–81). Five (20.0%) patients had stage I/II disease, and 20 (80.0%) had stage III/IV disease. The median number of cycles was 6.0 (3.0–6.0). Maintenance rituximab was administered to 10 (41.7%) individuals. Overall response rate (ORR) was 100.0% (60.0% complete response, 40.0% partial response). Medians of overall survival and progression-free survival were not reached. The estimated 2-year progression-free survival was 85.2% and overall survival was 100.0%. Four (16.6%) patients had infections related to treatment; 3 (12.0%) transformed to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma; 5 (20.8%) had a relapse or progression of EMZL; and 3 (12.0%) died unrelated to BR. BR is an efficacious and well-tolerated front-line regimen for EMZL with response data consistent with existing literature.

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