SUMMARY
Rituximab with cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine and prednisone (R-CHOP) is the standard treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and is able to cure 50–60% of the patients. However, patients resistant to or in early relapse after R-CHOP have a very poor prognosis with a median overall survival of only six months, and very few patients have a long survival. Double-hit lymphoma (rearrangement MYC and BCL2) has a major risk of refractoriness, and more intense chemotherapy than R-CHOP is recommended. Early PET-CT could identify resistance to conventional chemotherapy. Intensification with autologous or allogeneic stem cell transplantation is recommended in case of a response to salvage regimen. New agents are expected and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy is a very promising approach.
(BELG J HEMATOL 2018;9(7):249–53)
