High-Dose Combination Chemotherapy with Cyclophosphamide, Carmustine, Etoposide, and Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation in 60 Patients with Relapsed Hodgkin’s Disease: The M. D. Anderson Experience

Abstract

Patients with Hodgkin’s disease who do not respond to initial combination chemotherapy or who relapse after an initial response to chemotherapy have a poor prognosis. The complete remission rate with further combination chemotherapy is less than 50%, with short remission duration and low cure fraction (Hagemeister et al. 1987; Santoro et al. 1986; Tseng et al. 1987). In 1983, we started using high-dose chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, carmustine, and etoposide (CVB) and autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) for the treatment of these groups of patients. Other groups have also used high-dose chemotherapy and ABMT in similar patients (Ahmed et al. 1987; Carella et al. 1986; Goldstone et al. 1986; O’Reilly et al. 1987; Philip et al. 1986). This report will update our previously reported experience at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Jagannath et al. 1986 a, b).