787 Multiple cycles of aggressive chemotherapy for relapsed lymphoma

Abstract

Patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and advanced Hodgkin's disease who relapse after first line therapy have a poor prognosis. Around 30–40% of patients with disease sensitive to salvage chemotherapy achieve long term survival after subsequent high dose chemotherapy (HDCT) and autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT). In addition, for patients undergoing HDCT, the use of peripheral blood progenitor cells (PBPC) results in faster neutrophil and platelet recovery compared with bone marrow.Based on the premise that a single cycle of HDCT may be suboptimal, we piloted a regimen combining 5 days of infusional ara-C and etoposide with bolus doses of cyclophosphamide and methotrexate and high..