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The outcomes for patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) treated with high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) and peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) infusion by practicing oncologists in community cancer centers in the United States were determined. Eighty-three patients with NHL, who had failed conventional chemotherapy, underwent mobilization of PBSC with chemotherapy and a recombinant growth factor in an outpatient facility. At a median of 40 days (range 26–119) after mobilization chemotherapy all received carmustine (300 mg/m2 × 1), etoposide (150 mg/m2 twice a day × 4 days), cytarabine (100 mg/m2 twice a day × 4 days) and cyclophosphamide (35 mg/kg × 4 days) (BEAC) followed by infusion of unmanipulated PBSC in an outpatient facility. The probabilities of treatment-related mortality, relapse/progression, overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS) at 3 years for all 83 patients were 0.07, 0.57, 0.49 and 0.38, respectively. The probabilities of relapse/progression, OS and EFS at 3 years for 28 patients who had failed primary induction chemotherapy were 0.55, 0.42 and 0.38, respectively. The probabilities of OS and EFS for 27 patients in untreated first relapse were 0.52 and 0.44, respectively, as compared to 0.56 and 0.32, respectively, for 18 patients who had reinduction attempts prior to receiving mobilization chemotherapy (P = 0.81 for OS and 0.99 for EFS). No significant risk factors for the outcomes of TRM, relapse/progression, OS or EFS could be identified. These data demonstrate that approximately 40% of patients with NHL who have failed conventional chemotherapy become long-term disease-free survivors after mobilization chemotherapy, high-dose BEAC and PBSC infusion administered in an outpatient setting in community cancer centers, with the major cause of failure being relapse. Results obtained in this study are comparable to published data in similar patient populations receiving... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engraftment kinetics after high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) were evaluated in patients receiving autologous peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) infusions with a low CD34+ cell content. Forty-eight patients were infused with <2.5 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg; 36 because of poor harvests and 12 because they electively received only a fraction of their harvested cells. A median of 2.12 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg (range, 1.17–2.48) were infused following one of seven different HDC regimens. All patients achieved absolute neutrophil counts  0.5 × 109/l at a median of day 11 (range, 9–16). Forty-seven patients achieved platelet counts  20 × 109/l at a median of day 14 (range, 8–250). Nine of 47 (19%) had platelet recovery after day 21, 4/47 (9%) after day 100 and one died on day 240 without platelet recovery. Twenty-six patients (54%) died of progressive disease in 51–762 days; 22 (46%) are alive at a median of 450 days (range, 94–1844), 17 (35%) of whom are surviving disease-free at a median of 494 days (range, 55–1263). No patient died as a direct consequence of low blood cell counts. These data demonstrate that PBSC products containing 1.17–2.48 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg resulted in relatively prompt neutrophil recovery in all patients but approximately 10% had delayed platelet recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]