The curability of follicular lymphoma.

Follicular lymphoma has been widely thought to be an incurable disease. However, if cure is defined as a remission that continues indefinitely and the patient eventually dies of another disease, some patients with follicular lymphoma are cured. Follicular lymphoma grade 3 acts much like diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and cure is frequent. Even in follicular lymphoma grade 1 and 2, some patients have durable responses to initial therapy, and a significant proportion of patients can have durable responses after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.