Several presentations at the recent 42^nd annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Francisco provided new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of aggressive non-Hodgkin?s lymphoma, including the most common subtype, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Combining the monoclonal antibody rituximab with standard chemotherapy is being touted as the first new drug combination in 20 years to improve overall survival in this group of patients. For those who fail to respond to rituximab, another monoclonal antibody, tositumomab, combined with a radioactive iodine isotope (together known as Bexxar), appears to induce durable complete responses. And gene expression profiling may be able to delineate which subgroups of patients are more likely to survive this highly refractory disease.
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