Is there any place for a wait-and-see policy in stage I0 follicular lymphoma?
GROUND:: A wait-and-see policy (WS) does not appear to modify the long-term prognosis of advanced-stage follicular lymphomas (FL), while irradiation of limited stages some times causes complications and does not avert distant relapses. Consequently, we decided to test WS in a selected su bset of the localized FL, i.e., patients in complete remission (CR) after the initial lymph node biopsy (stage I0). PATIENTS AND METHODS:: Forty-three previously untreated patients were diagnosed with stage I0 FL and 26 of them were included in the WS. Their median age was 60.3 years; 19 were male and 24 female. All histological slides were reviewed and confirmed the diagnosis of FL. Median followup was 6.3 years (y). RESULTS:: Thirteen of the 26 untreated patients are still relapse-free, while six relapsed locally only (median: 4.2 years after diagnosis), and reattained CR with radiotherapy. Seven patients relapsed at distant sites (median: 1 year after diagnosis). No localized relapses were observed
