Dr. Fowler on Different Responses to Therapy for Follicular Lymphoma

Nathan Fowler, MD, associate professor, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the differences in response to the same therapy for patients with follicular lymphoma.

It has been well known that patients with follicular lymphoma behave very differently with the same therapy, explains Fowler. Some patients who are receiving the same therapy can have a median survival of 3 to 5 years, whereas others can have a median survival of 14 years. The field has been moving to identify those patients with different types of biological and clinical factors.

Several years ago, the FLIPI scoring system was developed, which looks at 5 clinical factors in patients before they receive treatment. The FLIPI score is able to successfully predict the patients who will have positive or negative outcomes, states Fowler.