Effectiveness of the Initial Escalation of Immunochemotherapy in Patients with High Risk MALT-Lymphoma: Pilot Study Results

AK Smol’yaninova, NG Gabeeva, SA Tatarnikova, AV Belyaeva, AM Kovrigina, EG Gemdzhyan, EE Zvonkov

National Research Center for Hematology, 4 Novyi Zykovskii pr-d, Moscow, Russian Federation, 125167

For correspondence: Anna Konstantinovna Smol’yaninova, MD, PhD, 4 Novyi Zykovskii pr-d, Moscow, Russian Federation, 125167; Tel.: +7(495)612-48-10; e-mail: annmo8@mail.ru.

For citation: Smol’yaninova AK, Gabeeva NG, Tatarnikova SA, et al. Effectiveness of the Initial Escalation of Immunochemotherapy in Patients with High Risk MALT-Lymphoma: Pilot Study Results. Clinical oncohematology. 2018;11(4):338–48.

DOI: 10.21320/2500-2139-2018-11-4-338-348


ABSTRACT

Background. MALT-lymphoma is usually characterized with an indolent course. The factors underlying the effectiveness of the standard chemotherapy in patients with MALT-lymphomas include MALT-IPI risk group and a high SUVmax according to the results of positron emission tomography (PET). All well-known MALT-lymphoma risk factors indirectly indicate a high risk of transformation to large cell lymphoma. The search for an effective chemotherapy continues.

Aim. To evaluate the effectiveness of the R-EPOCH/R-BAC escalated immunochemotherapy for MALT-lymphoma patients with poor prognosis factors.

Materials & Methods. In the period of 2016–2017 the study included 5 female MALT-lymphoma patients (the mean age of 41 years), of which 1 patient had an early relapse after surgery and 4 patients were newly diagnosed. Prior to therapy 4 patients were evaluated with PET. The mean SUVmax was 10.04. According to MALT-IPI 2 patients belonged to a high-risk group and 3 belonged to a middle-risk group. All the patients received R-EPOCH/R-BAC regimen therapy. A month after completing the treatment all the patients were again evaluated with PET.

Results. In 4 patients with 10–24 months follow-up complete remission was reported, which was confirmed by the results of histology and PET. The treatment of 1 patient was not completed. The immunotherapy was well tolerated by the patients. Hematological toxicity grade 3–4 occurred only after completing R-BAC treatment regimens. No severe infectious complications were reported.

Conclusion. MALT-lymphoma patients need to be evaluated in terms of all prognostic factors to identify the high-risk patients for whom escalated therapy is to be used already in the first line treatment. This pilot study of the use of R-EPOCH/R-BAC for treatment of MALT-lymphoma patients with poor prognosis factors yielded positive results and showed its acceptable tolerance.

Keywords: MALT-lymphoma, immunochemotherapy, positron emission tomography, prognosis factors, rituximab, ribomustin, cytarabine.

Received: April 10, 2018

Accepted: August 3, 2018

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