Clinical Roundtable Monograph: recent advances in NHL. Highlights from the 51st ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, December 5-8, 2009, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Current clinical trials evaluating new treatment options for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) are numerous. Studies are comparing traditional chemotherapy with high-dose regimens; various rituximab-based combinations for upfront therapy, many with newly developed drugs; new agents for rituximab-refractory patients; and other approaches. Several intriguing studies were presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). The efficacy of bendamustine plus rituximab for the first-line treatment of advanced follicular, indolent, and mantle cell lymphomas was the most important finding presented. Other important results included the lack of superiority of high-dose chemotherapy plus rituximab compared with traditional chemotherapy plus rituximab for high-risk patients with aggressive B-cell lymphomas, and promising outcomes with the combination of lenalidomide plus rituximab for both rituximab-refractory and non-rituximab-refractory indolent NHL. The crucial data presented at the 2009 ASH annual meeting are discussed and evaluated by 2 leading experts in the treatment of NHL, Drs. Myron S. Czuczman and Mathias J. Rummel.