Abstract
At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, we have treated over 400 patients with ICE chemotherapy after failure of upfront anthracycline-based therapy with a response rate of 72% in aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and 84% in Hodgkin's disease. Utilizing this database, we have identified pretreatment prognostic markers capable of predicting the quality of response (complete response vs partial response vs failure) to second-line cytoreductive ICE chemotherapy and consequently autologous stem cell transplantation. We have shown that in aggressive NHL, patients achieving a complete response have superior survival when compared to those achieving only a partial response. By identifying a priori those patients destined to have only a partial response to ICE, we will be able to target a group of chemosensitive patients who are most likely to benefit from improved treatment. Novel treatment strategies designed to increase their complete response rate would be anticipated to improve their long-term survival.
