**7. Drugs available for the maintenance part of treatment regimen**

Decade after decade, there is a change in opinion about benefits of maintenance therapy. While conventional cytostatics and glucocorticoids were used because of lack of any other option, the era of interferon alpha ended with the introduction of immunomodulatory drugs. It is also true that worldwide, interferon alpha had never been accepted as routine maintenance therapy because of its comparatively high toxicity as well as minimal benefit for the unclassified subgroup of patients in [28].
