Monoclonal antibodies in the treatment of indolent lymphomas

Humanised monoclonal antibodies have transformed the treatment of patients with lymphomas. The first application of these new drugs appeared less than 10 years ago but currently a lymphoma patient will certainly receive at least one of them once or several times during the evolution of his/her disease. This review covers the use of these monoclonal antibodies alone or in combination with chemotherapy. Rituximab, an unconjugated anti-CD20 chimeric antibody, is certainly the most widely used but other unconjugated or radiolabelled monoclonal antibodies are catching up quickly. If there are randomised studies demonstrating the benefit of adding these drugs to the treatment of patients with lymphoma, very few studies have compared the activity of the different monoclonal antibodies. Many questions need to be answered before the best setting for these drugs will be known.