Treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with chemoradiotherapy and allogenic marrow transplantation.

Twenty patients with disseminated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who failed conventional combination chemotherapy were treated with high-dose chemoradiotherapy and marrow transplantation from an HLA-identical sibling. Four patients remain alive in complete remission from 153 to 784 days after transplant. The reason for failure in eight cases was persistence or relapse of lymphoma. In the other eight cases, death was due to a complication of the transplant procedure including interstitial pneumonia, veno-occlusive disease of the liver, graft-versus-host disease, or infection. These results appear similar to those previously observed in patients with acute leukemia in relapse in that a small but significant proportion of patients with otherwise end-stage disease may achieve prolonged complete remission after intensive chemoradiotherapy and allogeneic marrow transplantation.