[Malignant non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. What indications for bone marrow autotransplantation?].

Abstract

Due to their chemosensitivity, intensive therapy with hematopoietic stem-cell autograft is widely used in the treatment of malignant non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Among the large body of literature on this topic, there are only a limited number of controlled trials. Bone-marrow graft is the standard treatment in lymphomas with highgrade malignancy when more than one factor of poor prognosis (elevated LDH, disseminated forms, poor general health) are observed at diagnosis and when only partial response is obtained after induction therapy. Similarly, the efficacy of bone-marrow grafts has recently been demonstrated to be greater than conventional treatment in case of relapse of chemosensitive forms. For other types of low-grade lymphoma and mantle-cell lymphoma, autologous bone-marrow graft has given very promising results but requires assessment in randomized studies to determine optimal use.