Photo Credit: iStock.com/Nemes Laszlo
A population-based study published in the American Journal of Hematology suggests that systematic, scheduled follow-ups for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) play a limited role in early relapse detection, emphasizing a need for alternative surveillance strategies to improve outcomes. Therese Lassen, MD, and colleagues examined strategies to detect relapse in patients with DLBCL who achieved complete remission (CR) after first-line therapy. They used data from the Danish Lymphoma Registry to identify 1,634 patients diagnosed between 2010 and 2017, including 105 who experienced relapse. Over a median follow-up of 6 years (range, 3-8), 83% of relapses were symptomatic, most commonly presenting with B symptoms and peripheral lymphadenopathy. Asymptomatic relapses were detected through physical examination (1%), blood tests (3%), or imaging (13%). The researchers found that 70% of relapses were identified outside routine visits, with only 5% of scheduled visits leading to a relapse diagnosis. By contrast, 74% of unscheduled, patient-initiated visits resulted in relapse detection.
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