Rituximab + IEV/MINE Second Line Approach in Relapsed/Refractory Non Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL): Efficacy and Safety

Background. Relapsed/refractory high grade NHL is a very aggressive pathology characterised by a poor prognosis. High dose therapy followed by peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) rescue is to date the gold standard therapy. The results of high dose therapy are influenced by remission status after II line therapy as patients who undergo transplantation in complete response have better progression free survival with respect to those in partial response. While Rituximab+chemotherapy has become the approach of choice in 1stline-therapy, this type of schedule has not yet been largely applied in 2ndline therapy. In the aim of testing the efficacy of 2ndline-combined immuno-chemotherapy we designed a protocol including Rituximab + IEV/MINE.