title: Long-term disease-free survival of patients with advanced mantle-cell lymphoma following high-dose chemotherapy.
abstract: In advanced stage mantle cell lymphoma, conventional chemotherapy yields a complete remission rate below 40%, and the median survival rate is only about 3 years. Between 1991 and 1996 we treated nine such patients (six male; three female) with high-dose chemotherapy (six of these also with 12 Gy fractionated total body irradiation (TBI)) and peripheral stem cell support (n = 8) or allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (n = 1). The median age was 47 years (range, 28-61). At the time of high-dose chemotherapy, five patients were in first complete remission (CR), two in first partial remission (PR) and two in second remission (CR = 1; PR = 1). High-dose chemotherapy included TBI (12 Gy), etoposide and cyclophosphamide (patients 1-5), TBI and cyclophosphamide (patient 7), busulfan, etoposide and cyclophosphamide (patients 6 and 9), cyclophosphamide and busulfan (patient 8). The patterns of toxicity according to the Bearman score were usually mild (mucositis grade 2, n = 7; renal grade I, n = 2) with no therapy-related fatality. Only one patient developed hepatic toxicity grade III (veno-occlusive disease) but recovered completely. The median time to neutrophil engraftment was 10 days (range, 8-15). After high-dose chemotherapy all patients achieved complete remission. After a median follow-up of 22 months (range, 9.4-64) all patients remain in continuous complete remission. These encouraging results suggest that high-dose chemotherapy can be applied safely and leads to long-term disease-free survival in otherwise incurable disease.
authors.affiliation: Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit, University Hospital Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kröger
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hoffknecht
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dreger
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Krüger
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zeller
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Krüll
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stockschläder
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bittner
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Weh
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Zander
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014916:Whole-Body Irradiation