Combination Chemotherapy and Peripheral Stem Cell Transplantation in Treating Older Patients With Refractory or Relapsed Intermediate-Grade Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Primary refractory intermediate grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) OR
• Untreated relapsed intermediate grade NHL with no more than 1 extranodal site of disease
• Biopsy proven relapse of diffuse large cell, diffuse mixed cell, diffuse small cleaved cell (excluding mantle cell lymphoma), follicular large cell, anaplastic large cell or immunoblastic NHL in recently attained complete response patients

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 60 and over

Performance status:

• Karnofsky at least 80%

Life expectancy:

• Not specified

Hematopoietic:

• Not specified

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin no greater than 2.0 mg/dL unless there is a history of Gilbert's disease

Renal:

• No history of chronic renal insufficiency
• Creatinine no greater than 1.5 mg/dL or if greater than 1.5 mg/dL, then creatinine clearance must be at least 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• No myocardial infarction within the past 6 months
• No unstable angina or cardiac arrhythmias other than chronic atrial fibrillation
• Normal cardiac function required; MUGA scan or stress ECG ejection fraction at least 50% without significant wall motion abnormalities

Pulmonary:

• Adequate pulmonary function defined as DLCO at least 50% of predicted value when corrected for patients hemoglobin and alveolar ventilation

Other:

• No medical illness unrelated to intermediate grade Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
• No uncontrolled infection
• No history of malignancy other than curatively treated cutaneous basal cell carcinoma; carcinoma in situ of the cervix; axillary node negative breast cancer without prior chemotherapy and disease free for more than 2 years; or prostate cancer with surgery alone and disease free for more than 2 years
• No lymphoblastic lymphoma, small noncleaved cell lymphoma, CNS lymphoma or CNS relapse of lymphoma
• Not HIV, HBV, and HCV positive

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• Concurrent enrollment in MSKCC protocol 96-17a allowed

Biologic therapy:

• Not specified

Chemotherapy:

• No more than 2 prior chemotherapy regimens

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• Not specified

Surgery:

• Not specified