Monoclonal antibodies combined to chemotherapy for the treatment of patients with lymphoma

Humanized 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 one patient will certainly receive them once or several time during the evolution of his disease. This review will cover 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 radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies catch up quickly. If there are randomized 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. A lot of questions needs to be answered before the best setting of these drugs will be known.