Management Strategies for Follicular Lymphoma patients in Remission after Modern Frontline Chemoimmunotherapies

Follicular lymphoma (FL) is the second most common type of nonHodgkin lymphoma [1]. The development of rituximab represented a major breakthrough in the management of FL, with several landmark clinical trials consistently demonstrating superior survival outcomes with rituximab-containing chemoimmunotherapies compared to chemotherapy alone, both in the frontline [2-5] and relapsed/ refractory settings [6]. However despite the remarkable advances in chemoimmunotherapy for FL, these modalities are still not considered curative, hence; strategies designed to extend remission duration is often a key therapeutic goal. Nearly all FL patients treated with first line chemoimmunotherapies will eventually relapse. The currently available options to extend the duration of first remission and possibly survival outcomes in FL include; consolidation with autologous transplantation, maintenance rituximab (MR), radioimmunotherapy (RIT) consolidation and rituximab retreatment (RRT). In this editorial we provide a brief overview of how to approach a patient with FL in remission following first line modern chemoimmunotherapies.