Radiation therapy is an effective modality in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma, even in heavily pretreated patients.

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Mantle cell lymphoma has an aggressive clinical course and continuous relapse pattern with a median survival of 3 to 7 years. Multiple courses of chemotherapy are the basis of treatment. Radiotherapy is underutilized in this disease. We undertook this study to assess the role of radiation therapy. A total of 41 consecutive patients with mantle cell lymphoma diagnosed from December, 1999 to January, 2010 who received radiation therapy were reviewed retrospectively. The main endpoint was in-field lymphoma response at each irradiated disease site. There were 39 evaluable patients (68 symptomatic sites). Sites treated included: nodal stations (n = 31), soft tissue (n = 13), mucosal sites (n = 11), central nervous system (n = 10), gastrointestinal tract (n = 2), and bone (n = 1). Median maximum tumor size at presentation was 3.5 cm (range, 1.3 cm-9.6 cm). The median dose of radiation was 30.6 Gy (range 18-40 Gy). Median follow-up post radiation per site was 12.3 months (range, 0.6-80.9 months). Response to treatment was complete in 47 sites (69.1%), partial in 16 sites (23.5%), and 5 sites (7.4%) had stable disease. In 9 (13.2%) sites local relapse occurred (median 7 months; range 2-21). The mean size of lymphoma at time of RT correlated with relapse, with tumors with local relapse larger than those without a local relapse (P = .005). Our data add to accumulating evidence that mantle cell lymphoma is a radio-sensitive disease with excellent responses to relatively low radiation doses, even in patients with chemo-refractory disease.