We report the outcome of reduced-intensity allogeneic progenitor cell transplantation (alloPCT) for 188 patients with lymphoma from the Working Party Lymphoma of the European Group for Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation (EBMT). The median age of the patients was 40 years, the median number of prior treatment courses was 3, and 48% of patients had undergone a prior autologous transplantation. Eighty-four percent of the patients received conditioning with fludarabinebased regimens and 10% with the BEAM (BCNU, etoposide, cytosine arabinoside, melphalan) protocol. Full donor chimerism was confirmed in 71% of 100 patients assessed. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) developed in 37% of patients and chronic GVHD in 17%. A disease response to donor leukocyte infusion (DLI) was seen in 10 of 14 patients. With a median follow-up of 283 days, the overall survival rates at 1 and 2 years were 62% and 50%, respectively. The 100-day and 1-year transplantationrelated mortality (TRM) rates were 12.8% and 25.5%, respectively, and were significantly worse for older patients. The probability of disease progression at 1 year for patients with chemoresistant and chemosensitive disease were 75% and 25%, respectively (P ‫؍‬ .001). The progressionfree survival at 1 year was 46% and was significantly better for those with chemosensitive disease, Hodgkin disease (

LymphomaAn EBMT registry matched study of allogeneic stem cell transplants for lymphoma: allogeneic transplantation is associated with a lower relapse rate but a higher procedure-related mortality rate than autologous transplantation AJ Peniket, MC Ruiz de Elvira, G Taghipour, C Cordonnier, E Gluckman, T years; Burkitt's lymphoma 37.1%; and Hodgkin's disease 24.7% years. These outcomes are relatively poor because of the high procedure-related mortality associated with these procedures, particularly in patients with Hodgkin's disease (51.7% actuarial procedure-related mortality at 4 years). Multivariate analysis showed that for all lymphomas apart from Hodgkin's disease, status at transplantation significantly affected outcome. A matched analysis was performed: for all categories of lymphoma, OS was better for autologous than for allogeneic transplantation. Relapse rate was better in the allogeneic group for low-, intermediate-and high-grade, and lymphoblastic NHL. It was equivalent for Burkitt's lymphoma and worse in the allogeneic group for Hodgkin's disease. Allogeneic transplantation appears to be superior to autologous procedures in terms of producing a lower relapse rate. The toxicity of allogeneic procedures must however be reduced before this translates into an improvement in OS.

To evaluate the outcome of a large series of patients who received high-dose treatment (HDT) for follicular lymphoma (FL), 693 patients undergoing HDT (total-body irradiation (TBI)-containing regimen: 58%; autologous bone marrow (BM)/peripheral blood progenitor cells (PBPCs): 378/285 patients) were included in the study. A total of 375 patients (54%) developed recurrent lymphoma, 10-year progression-free survival (PFS) being 31%. On multivariate analysis, younger age (P=0.003) and HDT in first complete remission (CR1) (P<0.001) correlated with longer PFS. With a median follow-up of 10.3 years, 330 patients died. Ten-year overall survival (OS) from HDT was 52%. Shorter OS was associated on multivariate analysis with older age (P<0.001), chemoresistant disease (P<0.001), BM+PBPC as source of stem cells (P=0.007) and TBI-containing regimens (P=0.004). Thirty-nine patients developed secondary myelodysplastic syndrome/acute myeloid leukaemia (MDS/AML), in 34 cases having received TBI as the conditioning regimen. The 5-year non-relapse mortality (NRM) was 9%. On multivariate analysis, older age (P<0.001), refractory disease (P<0.001) and TBI (P=0.04) were associated with a higher NRM. This long follow-up study shows a plateau in the PFS curve, suggesting that a selected group of patients might be cured with HDT. On the downside, TBI-containing regimens are associated with a negative impact on survival.

High-dose therapy and ASCT is an effective treatment strategy for patients with Hodgkin's disease for whom induction chemotherapy fails. Outcome was equivalent for those with obvious PD or SD/MR in response to the regimen given immediately before high-dose therapy. Prospective randomized studies are required to compare this approach with conventional-dose salvage therapy.

Patients with chemosensitive transformed lymphoma should be seriously considered for high-dose therapy and autologous stem-cell support.

These analyses failed to find evidence of a graft-versus-lymphoma effect, but do provide indirect evidence to support the hypothesis that tumor contamination may contribute to lymphoma relapse, and that purging may be beneficial for patients undergoing autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation for low-grade NHL.

Although high-dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) are increasingly being used for the treatment of relapsed and resistant Hodgkin's disease, there have been few large, single-center studies reported with adequate follow-up to allow full evaluation of this therapeutic modality. We present 155 poor-risk Hodgkin's disease patients who received high-dose BEAM (BCNU, etoposide, cytosine arabinoside, and melphalan) chemotherapy and ABMT who have been studied over a period of 8 years. All patients had either not attained a remission on mechlorethamine, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone-type therapy and had poor prognostic features at presentation, not attained a complete remission or relapsed within 1 year of an initial alternating regimen, or not attained remission with two or more lines of treatment. At the time of ABMT the relapse status of the patients was as follows: 46 patients were primarily refractory to induction therapy, 7 were good partial responders, 52 were in first relapse, 37 in second relapse, and 13 in third relapse. Seventy-eight patients had chemoresistant disease, 33 had chemosensitive disease at the time of ABMT, and 44 were untested for chemosensitivity at latest relapse. The procedure related mortality in the first 90 days post-ABMT of 10% overall. At 3 months 43 patients (28%) were assessed as complete responders, 72 patients had a partial response (46%), and 24 patients (16%) had no response or progression of disease. However, by 6 months, 53 (24%) patients were assessed as complete responders and 51 (33%) patients had nonprogressive disease. Forty-five patients had received radiotherapy post-ABMT to residual masses (41 patients) or to previous sites of bulk disease (4 patients). The actuarialoverall and progression-free survival at 5 years was 55% and 50%, respectively. On multivariate analysis patients with bulk (masses >10 cm), heavily pretreated patients (those receiving three or more lines of treatment) and females had a significantly poorer prognosis. Relapse status was also significant for progression-free survival in that patients in second (60%) and third relapse (70%) had a better prognosis than those in first relapse (44%) or with primary refractory disease (33%). Response to prior chemotherapy did not predict for progression-free survival. These results enable comparisons to be made between high-dose chemotherapy with ABMT and conventional dose salvage therapy. Furthermore, although the results as a whole are highly encouraging, certain groups carry an unfavorable prognosis.

The results of high-dose therapy and ASCT for patients with relapsed disease, particularly chemosensitive relapse, are superior to those reported for conventional-dose salvage regimens. The results for patients transplanted in first CR require comparison with modern dose-intensive regimens.