Follicular lymphoma (FL) is a group of lymphomas with relatively long overall survival, however, in terms of prognosis, the group is heterogenous. In certain patients, especially with advanced clinical stage of the disease, there is increased risk of early relapse and short survival. Such patients might benefit from more aggressive type of treatment or from combination therapy involving monoclonal antibodies in first line. Prognostic factors as optimal surrogates for biological behaviour of the FL were still not firmly established. In this article we present historical review of prognosti c factors in FL in relation to overall survival and other variables. The other variables like failure free survival (FFS), time to treatment failure (TTF) should be also taken into account, as they reflect better the quality of life. Subsequently, we have analysed two recent studies of the groups GELA/GELF and ILI (Groupe d’Etude des Lymphomes de l’Adulte, Groupe d’Etudes des Lymphomes Folliculaires, Intergruppo Italiano Limfomi) and we have also reconsidered the International prognostic index (IPI). Based on these analyses we tried to define three prognostic groups of patients with FL in clinical stage III or IV (Ann Arbor). Different management of FL in specific prognostic groups involving clinical studies might be considered.

        Key words: follicular lymphoma, prognostic factors, therapy