A Multicentre, Randomized Phase III Study of Rituximab as Maintenance Treatment Versus Observation in Patients With Aggressive B-cell Lymphoma: NHL-13

This is a randomized, open label, phase III study to evaluate the ability of rituximab maintenance therapy to prolong event-free survival in aggressive NHL. Patients will be screened after successful standard induction therapy (CR or Cru following standard R-CHOP-like therapy with 8 infusions of rituximab plus CHOP-like chemotherapy (4-8 cycles). Patients will be followed until an event occurs as defined in the protocol. To evaluate the clinical efficacy of rituximab maintenance therapy as compared to observation in patients with aggressive B-cell Non-Hodgkins lymphoma or follicular lymphoma grade 3b who have achieved a complete remission after appropriate first-line therapy, measured by event-free survival (EFS), 440 patients with DLCBL or follicular NHL grade 3 (220 per arm) will be recruited.