Treatment for non-hodgkin's lymphoma in relapse – what are the alternatives?

Multiagent chemotherapy including anthracyclines can induce long-term disease-free survival in 40 to 45 percent of patients with intermediate-grade, aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The other 55 to 60 percent of patients either do not have complete remission or have relapses, necessitating further treatment.¹ In this issue of the Journal, Philip et al.² describe the Parma study, in which patients with relapses of chemotherapy-sensitive, aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were randomly assigned to receive either conventional salvage chemotherapy or high-dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation. After a median follow-up of 63 months, the event-free survival among patients in the conventional-treatment group was 12 percent,.