Salvage therapy for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

The non-Hodgkin's lymphomas represent a diverse group of lymphoproliferative disorders for which treatment must be specified according to the patient's status as well as the disease status. Although many advances have been made in the front-line treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, more than 50% of the patients will not be cured with their initial therapy. Because of these treatment failures with front-line therapy, many different salvage therapies have been tried in this patient population. In this article, we describe several conventional-dose, salvage chemotherapies and strategies for dose escalation and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in an attempt to overcome chemotherapy resistance.