A systematic review evaluating the efficacy of autologous hematopoietic transplantation for diffuse large B cell lymphoma-type Richter syndrome

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can transform into fast growing lymphoma for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) called Richter's syndrome (RS), which is commonly related to an existence of large B-cells with equal or larger size than macrophage nuclei or more than twice those of normal lymphocyte. We conducted a systematic review of the existing literature to assess the clinical efficacy of auto-HCT for patients with RS.

We searched 4 main databases; EMBASE, Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science and was done on December 26,2021. All analyses in this study were performed by Stata software and this review was reported in accordance with PRISMA 2020.

Data was extracted from 4 articles; the total number of patients was reported to be 110. Based on the meta-analysis findings, pooled overall survival rate was 56.36% (95%CI= (46.98 – 65.31). In figure 2, the forest plot of combined results is shown.

Despite the use of common treatment regimens such as chemo immunotherapy and the availability of novel therapies including B-cell receptor inhibitors and rituximab-cyclophosphamide-hydroxydaunorubicin-Oncovin-prednisone (CHOP-R) regimen, the status of disease progression and recovery in RS cases is still not strong enough.