Dr. Hilal Discusses Study of Rituximab Maintenance in MCL

Talal Hilal, MB, BCh, assistant professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic, discusses a study of rituximab (Rituxan) maintenance in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) after induction chemoimmunotherapy.

In this meta-analysis, investigators aimed to determine the benefit of maintenance rituximab in the treatment of patients with MCL. Since there are not many studies of rituximab in this population, investigators decided to do a systematic review, Hilal explains. They collected 697 records and 28 full-text articles through PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane, and assessed them for eligibility. Overall, 1,050 patients met the inclusion criteria, with 455 patients in the rituximab maintenance arm and 595 in the non-rituximab maintenance arm.

The study did not distinguish between patients were who treated in the first-line, at relapse, or post-transplant—patients were eligible as long as they had received induction chemoimmunotherapy. Randomized trials and observation studies with comparative arms were also included, Hilal says.