High-dose chemotherapy with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in complete response as consolidation therapy, second report

High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous peripheral blood transplantation (HD-APBSCT) is a therapeutic option for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) after complete remission (CR) as consolidation therapy. In this report we describe a retrospective study of such treatment. A total of 38 patients with NHL were treated between November 19 9 1 and March 2005. At five years,the rate of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) was 64.3% and 66.5%, respectively. Patients who underwent transplantation in first CR had a 5-year probability of disease-free survival of 71.6% compared with 35.7% for those who were in second CR at the time of transplantation (p=0.10). In a monovariate analysis, second CR status at the time of transplantation was a relatively adverse predictor of DFS. None of those factors containing surface markers were significantly associated with clinical variables such as the CR status at the time of transplantation. Thirty high intermediate risk and high risk patients with aggressive B-cell lymphoma had a better outcome than patients treated with standard chemotherapy. In this study, 8 patients with T-cell lymphoma had a 3-year DFS and OS of 87.5% and 87.5%, respectively. HDT-APBSCT is a candidate for consolidation therapy for high-intermediate risk and high risk patients with aggressive B-cell and T-cell lymphoma.