Advances of rituximab in the treatment of malignant lymphoma

The chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab is the first humanized monoclonal antibody approved for patients with malignant lymphoma with CD20 expression. Rituximab has been approved to treat indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma as first-line medication. Other indications of this agent used to manage Hodgkin's lymphoma and other B-cell malignancies were in the clinical trial stage. The adjunctive therapy of rituximab with cytotoxic agents or cyto-kines has been impressed in many clinical studies. The maintenance treatment of indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with rituximab also yielded promising results. Rituximab has become the part of standard therapy for B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.