Rituximab Maintenance Therapy and Bendamustine Containing Treatments may improve the Survival of Mantle Cell Lymphoma: Retrospective Analysis in Single Institute

Introduction: The prognosis for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) has remained poor despite the current use of autologous transplantation and induction chemotherapy that includes high-dose cytarabine. The introduction of rituximab and bendamustine, however, has led to the improvement of prognosis of diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma and indolent lymphoma. For these reasons, we analyzed the effectivity of rituximab maintenance therapy and bendamustine against mantle cell lymphoma at our hospital.Methods: We selected 22 cases of MCL for which treatment was initiated between January 2004 and December 2016 at our hospital. We compared the cases based on the use of rituximab maintenance therapy or bendamustine, simplified Mantle Cell Lymphoma International Prognostic Index (sMIPI), staging, and treatment regimens to analyze the effect of rituximab maintenance therapy and bendamustine on prognosis.Results: Overall five-year survival rate was 67%. Significant difference (P=0.0432) was observed in the 5-year survival rate between the group treated with rituximab maintenance therapy (90.9%) and the group that was not (56.2%). Likewise, significant difference (P=0.0197) was observed in the 5-year survival rate between the group that received bendamustine during the course of treatment (90.9%) and the group that did not (50%). Majority of the cases in the group that received bendamustine, however, had been treated with rituximab maintenance therapy.Conclusion: Our study showed an improvement in prognosis of MCL due to the treatment with rituximab maintenance therapy and bendamustine. Although the analysis was conducted on a limited number of cases, we believe that rituximab maintenance therapy and treatments that include bendamustine are promising therapies for MCL.