1 Introduction
Mature aggressive B-cell lymphoma make up to 50 - 60% of all diagnosed
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in children and adolescents in
Germany.1 The most common subtypes of mature
aggressive B-cell lymphoma are Burkitt lymphoma (BL), Burkitt leukemia
(B-AL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).2,3Sporadic BL is less often associated with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)
infection compared to the endemic variant and is the most common variant
in North America and Europe.3 In Germany, it is most
frequent in children aged 4-14 and is primarily diagnosed in boys with a
sex ratio of 4.5 to 1.4 With currently available
polychemotherapy an overall survival rate of 80–90% can be
reached.5,6 However, relapse of patients, which
commonly occurs within six months after end of treatment, results in a
very poor outcome and is fatal for most of the
patients.4,7
The addition of the monoclonal antibody rituximab targeting CD20 on B
cells contributed to the increased survival patients with advanced
staged disease.5,6,8,9 Although rituximab and its
biosimilars are frequently applied in adults, there is still not much
known about the mechanisms of action in vivo due to the lack of
an adequate animal model.8 Additionally, biomarkers to
identify patients responding to rituximab therapy are
lacking.10 Therefore, better understanding of the
malignancy and further development of therapeutic strategies are
urgently needed.
Here, we show that expression of proteins important for tumor defense is
altered at day five after rituximab treatment in patients suffering from
B-NHL.