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, . . .