enough for people who are 30 or 40 years old at the time of diagnosis. For this reason, several centers have recently begun to treat low-grade lymphoma patients with high-dose therapy and bone marrow transplantation early in the course of their disease. The results so far show that these patients tolerate the transplant process well and a large proportion of them stay in remission for extended periods. It is still too early to know if this treatment can actually cure the disease.
Hodgkin's Disease Patients with this cancer do so well with standard treatment approaches that physicians in the past have been reluctant to refer them for transplantation early enough in their disease for a transplant to be beneficial. But patients who relapse after high-quality combination chemotherapy have a poor outlook with more standard therapy. And when these patients are referred for high-dose therapy and bone marrow transplantation soon after their relapse, 50 percent or more seem to be long-term, disease-free survivors—in other words, probably cured. The cure rate is much less (10 to 20 percent) when they have the transplant after failing many chemotherapy regimens.
Other Blood Cancers A number of other hematologic malignancies have occasionally been treated with bone marrow transplantation, and some patients with hairy cell leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia have been cured.
