Improving survival and narrowing age disparities in mantle cell lymphoma across therapeutic eras

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive subtype of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that predominantly affects older adults, with a median age at diagnosis of approximately 67 years and a marked male predominance [ 1 , 2 ]. Treatment outcomes have improved substantially over the past two decades with the incorporation of rituximab, cytarabine-based induction and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in selected patients [ 3 ], and Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKis) [ 4 ]. More recently, CAR-T therapies [ 5 ] have expanded options for relapsed/refractory disease, while randomized studies have challenged the necessity of ASCT in selected patients [ 6 , 7 ]. However, population-level survival gains across successive treatment eras, particularly among older, often transplant-ineligible patients, remain poorly defined, and the impact of therapeutic advances beyond the early BTKi era is unclear [ 8 ]. We therefore used the SEER-17 database to evaluate trends in MCL-specific mortality and survival from 2000 to 2023 across four therapeutic eras, with a focus on age-stratified outcomes.