Patients with indolent lymphomas are at high risk of infections: experience from a German outpatient clinic.

BACKGROUND

Patients with indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (B-NHLs) have an increased risk of infections which is caused by pathomechanisms of the diseases itself but also as a result of anti-tumor therapy. Especially the effects of anti-CD20 antibodies are well understood as these lead to decreased antibody production. Most studies regarding immunodeficiency in B-NHLs were conducted with multiple myeloma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. As these studies not always represent the general population we collected and analyzed real world data from patients with indolent lymphomas and a control group (CG).

RESULTS

Patients with B-NHLs undergoing therapy or who were regularly monitored in a watch and wait approach had, over the time of one year, an increased rate of infections compared to the CG of 145 healthy volunteers (mean: 11.66 vs. 7.13 infections per 1000 days). Consistent with this finding B-NHL patients received more antibiotic treatment (mean: 11.17 vs. 6.27 days) and were more often hospitalized than persons from the CG (mean: 5.19 vs. 0.99 days per 1000 days). Lymphoma patients without immunodeficiency had a lower infection rate than patients with non-symptomatic and symptomatic immunodeficiency (mean: 10.91 vs. 12.07 and 12.36 per 1000 days). The number of infections differed statistically significant for the subgroups and CG (7.13 per 1000 days). Patients with symptomatic immunodeficiency were mostly treated with regular immunoglobulin substitutions and infection rates were comparable to those of patients with asymptomatic immunodeficiency.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data suggest the use of an approach with regular immune monitoring including the measurement of immunoglobulin levels and regular appointments for clinical assessment of all indolent lymphoma patients in order to identify patients with increased risk of infections. It also raises the question if patients with immunodeficiency should be treated more often with regular immunoglobulin substitution, but so far more studies are necessary to answer this question.