12 YEARS EXPERIENCE WITH HIGH-DOSE THERAPY AND AUTOLOGOUS STEM-CELL TRANSPLANTATION FOR HIGH-RISK HODGKINS-DISEASE PATIENTS IN FIRST REMISSION AFTER MOPP ABVD CHEMOTHERAPY/

High-dose therapy followed by autografting can cure patients with aggr essive Hodgkin's disease (HD) refractory or with early relapse to firs t-line combination chemotherapy. On the other hand, the eradication of the disease is rarely achieved in heavily pretreated patients. It has been suggested that patients with HD with very high risk characterist ics at diagnosis, often relapse despite appropriate therapy with 7-8 d rugs combination. Thus it seems to us that such patients are potential candidates for early autografting during first remission. Twelve year s ago, we initiated a pilot study to investigate whether patients with very high risk characteristics, would benefit from early autografting . The application of early autografting was compared with our historic al group of patients in complete remission after receiving MOPP/ABVD, who had the same negative prognostic characteristics, refused autograf ting and who did not receive other treatment after achieving complete remission. Among the 22 consecutive patients entered into the pilot st udy and autografted, 18 are alive and 17 (77%) remain alive in unmaint ained remission at a median of 86 months. One patient (4%) died of int erstitial pneumonitis in the transplantation group. Only 8/24 (33%) pa tients, who did not receive an autograft, are currently alive and dise ase free at a median of 89 months. In conclusion, the early applicatio n of autografting appears to improve the outcome in patients with very high risk HD who achieved remission with MOPP/ABVD.