A PILOT-STUDY OF AUTOLOGOUS BONE-MARROW TRANSPLANTATION FOLLOWED BY RECOMBINANT INTERLEUKIN-2 IN MALIGNANT-LYMPHOMAS

In this study, we investigated the impact of recombinant interleukin-2 (rIL-2) after high dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow trans plantation (ABMT) in 25 patients with refractory or relapsed Hodgkin's disease (HD) (11 patients) and non Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) (14 patie nts). 48% of patients had resistant disease, 84% achieved complete rem ission after ABMT. rIL-2 was started at a median of 54 days post-trans plant and consisted of a first cycle of 5 days followed by 4 cycles of 2 days every other week. Patients received a mean of 160 x 10(6) IU/m (2) rIL-2 and hematological toxicity was moderate and transient. None of the 5 evaluable patients with measurable disease responded to rIL-2 . After a 5 year median follow-up, the probability of survival and DFS is 72% (HD: 73% and NHL: 70%, p = NS) and 45% (HD: 36% and NHL: 48%, p = NS) respectively. These somewhat encouraging results warrant furth er evaluation of rIL-2 after ABMT in controlled studies, especially in NHL patients stratified for previous chemosensitivity.