Successful treatment of refractory Hodgkin's disease by high-dose combination chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation.

Forty-four patients with refractory Hodgkin's disease were treated with high-dose combination chemotherapy followed by autologous bone marrow rescue. Twenty-two patients (50%) entered complete remission within 6 months of the procedure and four other patients are free of disease progression. Only two patients have subsequently relapsed from complete remission (CR). Bone marrow suppression was the predictable major toxicity of this procedure, and two patients (4.5%) died of sepsis during the aplastic phase. High-dose therapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) appears to be an effective salvage regimen for patients with refractory Hodgkin's disease.