Clinical Trial reveals effectiveness of Rituximab

Jun 7, 2020 by Ameer Helles

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is a severe, highly aggressive B-cell malignancy that is treated with high-intensity chemotherapy. Researchers have been studying the effectiveness of chemotherapy with and without rituximab in patients with BL.

Phase III findings of the Inter-B-NHL-ritux 2010 clinical trial were published in the <I>New England Journal of Medicine</i> and show that 95% of the treated children were disease-free after 3-years.



The trial is a major global partnership between the European Intergroup on Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and the Children's Oncology Group, led in the United States by Thomas Gross, MD, PhD, Colorado University Cancer Center investigator and pediatric oncologist at Children's Hospital Colorado, and in Europe by Véronique Minard-Colin, MD and Catherine Patte, MD, both pediatric oncologists at the Gustave Roussy Department of Child and Adolescent Oncology in Paris, France.

The introduction of rituximab reduced drug failures by 70%, resulting in a 10% improvement in the 3-year survival rate associated with chemotherapy alone.

The study led to the approval of rituximab for children with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Europe by the European Medicines Agency, and Dr. Gross is hoping that the FDA will use these findings as the basis for the approval in the United States of rituximab for this patient population.
 

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