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Alpha-interferon for relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 38, pages 701–702 (2006)Cite this article

The long-term survival for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who have undergone autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and subsequently relapsed has been poor. In a study by Vaishampayan et al.,1 patients who relapsed after autologous bone marrow transplantation had a 3-year survival rate of 55% if they responded to further salvage therapy, whereas patients who did not respond had a 3-year survival of 14%. Vose et al.2 found that patients with Hodgkin's disease who relapsed after an autologous transplant had a better median survival (i.e. 10.5 months) than patients with relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (i.e. 3 months). Treatments for patients relapsing after autologous transplant included further chemotherapy, radiation, combined chemotherapy and radiation, and a second transplant.2 Only three of 74 patients with relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma had remissions that lasted for 3 years. Two of these patients received radiation to a localized relapse and another had an allogeneic bone marrow transplant.

Alpha-interferon therapy has been used to treat several different types of malignancies and works through stimulation of natural killer cells, inducing major histocompatibility expression, and through antiproliferative effects.3 Responses to single-agent alpha-interferon have been described in patients with relapsed B- and T-cell lymphoma.4 We describe six patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who had failed both standard therapy and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and then received alpha-interferon as further salvage therapy (see Table 1). All six patients were given a starting dose of 3–5 million units three times a week and then titrated up or down based on their side-effect profile. The patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma also received rituximab concomitant with the initiation of the alpha-interferon.

Table 1 Patient characteristics and response to therapy
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  1. Department of Oncology/Hematology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA

    A E Armitage, J D Armitage & J O Armitage

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  1. A E Armitage
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  2. J D Armitage
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Correspondence to J O Armitage.

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Armitage, A., Armitage, J. & Armitage, J. Alpha-interferon for relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Bone Marrow Transplant 38, 701–702 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1705509

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