THERAPY OF RELAPSED OR REFRACTORY LOW-GRADE FOLLICULAR LYMPHOMAS - FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH COMPLETE REMISSION, SURVIVAL AND TIME TO TREATMENT FAILURE

Patients with relapsed low-grade follicular lymphomas (LGFL) frequentl y respond to subsequent therapy and can have long survival, but are ra rely cured. Factors associated with complete remission (CR) rate, leng th of survival, and time to treatment failure (TTF) after relapse are not well known. We assessed such factors by multivariate analysis in a retrospective review of 95 patients with relapsed LGFL treated with i nvestigational chemotherapy regimens at our institution. The CR rate a fter therapy was 22%; the likelihood of achieving CR was inversely ass ociated with the number of previous treatment failures (P < 0.001) and serum LDH level (P < 0.05). Both the presence of constitutional sympt oms and a history of more than two previous treatment failures were as sociated with shortened survival and TTF. Hemoglobin level was also si gnificantly associated with survival. Prognostic models for survival a nd TTF were derived to define patient groups with different projected outcomes after therapy for relapsed disease. The results of this study can be used to select patients for new investigational treatments and to evaluate the outcome of such therapies.