Allogeneic transplantation for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) can be cured in most of the patients, but in case of refractory disease or relapse after autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT) the prognosis becomes very poor. In these patients a consensus about the standard approach has not been achieved so far and only allogeneic SCT has shown a long-term disease control. The postulated graft-versus-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a matter of controversy, but the clinical responses observed after donor lymphocyte infusions may explain the superiority of alloSCT over standard chemo-radiotherapy. The results of conventional myeloablative alloSCT had a relevant non-relapse mortality (NRM), discouraging its widespread application as salvage treatment. In the last 10 years, reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) significantly decreased the NRM, widening the application of alloSCT also to heavily pretreated patients. Taking into account all phase II studies, 20-30% of patients receiving RIC alloSCT are disease-free and probably some of them are cured.