when they haven't spread. So it is not surprising that these tumors are among those most likely to respond to very high dose therapy accompanied by a bone marrow transplant.
Aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas These can be cured between one-third and one-half of the time with primary therapy. But if there is a relapse after initial therapy, bone marrow transplantation can cure a significant percentage of patients.
• It apparently can cure about a third of patients who are treated early after relapse when their disease is still
sensitive to chemotherapy at lower doses (they have at least a partial response to chemotherapy at lower doses
but cannot be cured by it).
• It can cure 10 to 15 percent of patients who have relapsed after primary chemotherapy but whose tumors are
no longer sensitive to lower-dose chemotherapy or whose tumors have never responded to chemotherapy.
There is now considerable enthusiasm for testing the use of bone marrow transplantation even earlier in the course of aggressive lymphomas, perhaps incorporating it into the initial therapy for patients who aren't likely to be cured with standard treatments. As we become better at identifying patients with a poor outlook with primary therapy, this might become an important use of bone marrow transplantation.
Low-Grade Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas These malignancies are rarely cured with standard therapies, although they are associated with a long average survival. But an average survival of even 10 years is not good
