Application of pixantrone in a III line of treatment as a bridge therapy to allotransplantation of stem cells

Diffuse large B-cell lymphomas are the most common group among all lymphomas. Despite the effectiveness of the I line therapy in 10–40% of patients, the possibility of relapse should be taken into account. The anthracycline antibiotics used in the II line therapy carry a high risk of cardiac complications. In patients with refractory or recurrent disease, emergency treatment is used, aiming for the transplantation of hematopoietic cells. If the II line therapy fails, the prognosis is bad. A new chance for patients with refractory or recurrent B-cell lymphoma is pixantrone dimaleate, a drug structurally related to anthracyclines with a significantly lower cardiotoxic potential. The paper presents a case of a 65-year-old patient with relapsing DLBCL lymphoma, after two treatment lines: R-CHOP and R-DHAP, and after autologous transplantation of stem cells, in which the use of pixantrone in the treatment of recurrence allowed to achieve remission and prepare the patient for the allo-HSCT procedure.