Purpose: Treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in the elderly is difficult because of an increased risk of toxicity and frequent chronic or debilitating diseases. The aim of this paper is to describe the main studies in this field.
Current knowledge and key points: Most recent clinical trials deal with anthracyclin or assimilated drugs regimens. Potential interest of chemotherapy and associated immunotherapy is on study. Without any influence on survival duration, haematopoietic growth factors seem to improve the tolerance of the treatment.
Future prospects and projects: For elderly patients with good performance status and without severe co morbidity, curative strategy with anthracyclin-containing regimen like CHOP is still the standard chemotherapy. Association with rituximab improves the prognosis. For patients with poor performance status and/or associated disease, optimal strategy remains to be defined with quality of life evaluation.