Long-term follow-up of two rituximab dosing strategies for low-tumor burden follicular lymphoma in the phase 3 RESORT study

The multicenter phase 3 RESORT study (‘rituximab extended schedule or retreatment trial’) compared two different rituximab dosing strategied for patients with previously untreated low-tumor burden follicular lymphoma. Rituximab-responsive patients were randomized to retreatment rituximab (RR, as needed) or maintenance rituximab. The primary analysis showed that time to treatment failure was not significantly different between the two dosing strategies. Long-term follow-up of the study has now been published. At 7 years, 83% of MR patients and 63% of RR patients had not required first chemotherapy, while 71% of MR patients and 37% of RR patients remained in first remission. Despite of the improved remission length with MR, there was no difference between the two groups in overall survival rate at ten years (83% versus 84%). The authors conclude that prolonged maintenance rituximab does not confer an OS advantage in low-tumor burden follicular lymphoma.