[Therapeutic advances for indolent lymphomas].

New therapeutic strategies for indolent lymphomas are described. Relapsed or advanced staged follicular lymphoma is assumed to have an indolent course when compared with intermediate- and high-grade NHL. Although treatment of low-grade follicular lymphomas with standard chemotherapeutic regimens is characteristically associated with a high initial response rate, the clinical course consists of a pattern of repeated relapse. Subsequent remissions occur, but at a progressively lower rate and with a shorter duration. Patients eventually succumb to the disease or its complications with a median survival of approximately 6.2 years. For these reasons, novel therapeutic agents and strategies need to be evaluated in this group of patients. Recently, high-dose chemoradiotherapy with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with ex vivo purging method was reported to be very effective therapeutic strategy. Very promising reports of chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody(rituximab), radioimmunotherapy by radioisotope-conjugated monoclonal antibodies, interferon, and allogeneic mini-transplantation followed by non-myeloablative preconditioning regimens are reviewed. Recent therapeutic approaches for other subtypes of indolent lymphomas including MALT and mantle cell lymphoma are also reviewed.