A wait-and-see policy (WS) does not appear to modify the long-term prognosis of advanced-stage follicular lymphomas (FL), while irradiation of limited stages sometimes causes complications and does not avert distant relapses. Consequently, we decided to test WS in a selected subset of the localized FL, i.e., patients in complete remission (CR) after the initial lymph node biopsy (stage I0).

Forty-three previously untreated patients were diagnosed with stage I0 FL and 26 of them were included in the WS. Their median age was 60.3 years; 19 were male and 24 female. All histological slides were reviewed and confirmed the diagnosis of FL. Median follow-up was 6.3 years (y).

Thirteen of the 26 untreated patients are still relapse-free, while six relapsed locally only (median: 4.2 years after diagnosis), and reattained CR with radiotherapy. Seven patients relapsed at distant sites (median: 1 year after diagnosis). No localized relapses were observed in the treated group, but there were 7 distant relapses.

The use of WS in stage I0 FL did not appear to modify the prognosis of these patients. Furthermore, we observed two distinct patterns of relapse (local and distant) that are difficult to differentiate at onset.