BENdamustine at Elevated Dose for Relapsed Follicular Lymphoma in Intensification Therapy and Transplantation (BENEFIT)

The natural history of this follicular lymphoma (FL) is marked by multiple relapses. The prognosis of FL has improved with the use of effective sequential chemotherapy and the introduction of anti-cluster of differentiation antigen 20 (anti-CD20) monoclonal antibody. Based on the multiple phases II, high dose chemotherapy (HDT) followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) appear to be an effective treatment in relapsed FL. At rituximab era, the 3-years EFS rate was 75% for relapsed transplanted patients treated in first line therapy in FL2000 protocol. Bendamustine that combines alkylating and antimetabolite activities had proven clinical activity in relapse and in first line therapy of FL. Carmustine (BCNU), etoposide, cytarabine, and melphalan (BEAM regimen) is one of the most used schedule of HDT in non hodgkin lymphoma. Regarding the good safety profile of Bendamustine, Visani et al. proposed a phase I/II of bendamustine at day -7 and -6, followed by etoposide, cytarabine and melphalan with similar dose than BEAM regimen. The bendamustine maximal dose is 200 mg/m² day -7, -6. Data from engraftment showed closed results than those observed after BEAM. None of patients experienced a dose limiting toxicity. In this context, the investigators proposed to perform a multicentric phase II of this regimen with 200 mg/m² day-7 and -6 of bendamustine for first and second relapsed FL with a chemosensitive disease after salvage therapy. No FL was evaluated in Visani et al. study. In addition, the investigators can observe a shortage of the BCNU these last years that incline to evaluate new schedule of HDT.