Photo Credit: Nemes Laszlo
The following is a summary of “Limited Benefit of Routine Clinical Follow-Up for Relapse Detection in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Patients in Complete Remission Following First-Line Treatment,” published in the January 2025 issue of Hematology by Lassen et al.
Researchers conducted a prospective study to evaluate follow-up strategies for detecting relapse in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after achieving complete remission (CR).
They conducted a population-based study using the Danish Lymphoma Registry (LYFO) and identified 1,634 patients diagnosed with DLBCL between 2010 and 2017. Of these, 105 patients achieved CR following first-line (1L) R-CHOP-like therapy and relapsed. The median follow-up time was 6 years (range 3–8 years).
Many relapses were symptomatic (83%), with B symptoms and peripheral lymphadenopathy being the most common. Asymptomatic relapses were identified via physical examination (1%), blood tests (3%), or imaging (13%). Relapses detected outside routine visits accounted for 70%, with 5% identified during scheduled visits and 74% during unscheduled patient-initiated visits.
Investigators found that systematic, scheduled monitoring had a minimal impact on early relapse detection in patients in remission. They suggested that future studies should focus on alternative methods of relapse surveillance.
Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajh.27577
