Radioimmunotherapy: strategies for the future in indolent and aggressive lymphoma.

The conjugation of radioisotopes to monoclonal antibodies, or radioimmunotherapy (RIT), is a highly active treatment in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. RIT has demonstrated high response rates and durable remissions in extensively pretreated patients and has proved highly effective as consolidation after induction chemotherapy in the first-line therapy of follicular lymphoma. Early-phase clinical trials have shown highly promising results using RIT as part of conditioning regimens in patients who are to undergo transplantation and as consolidation after chemotherapy in patients with aggressive lymphomas. Recent data suggest that integrating RIT with immunochemotherapy and transplant conditioning regimens may further improve outcomes for patients.