|
Brief summary: |
Patients with relapsed or resistant lymphoma require initial salvage chemotherapy to control their disease. One type of salvage chemotherapy is called ICE which can be given over 3 consecutive days as an outpatient for 3 cycles. On the day following each cycle of the ICE therapy (day 4) a single injection under the skin of pegfilgrastim is given to prevent the white blood cell count from falling too low. Provided patients respond to the salvage ICE chemotherapy, they then require high-dose chemotherapy as an inpatient. However, since this high dose therapy also kills some of the healthy white blood cells, it is necessary to collect stem cells from the blood before the high dose therapy. This is done by a process called leukapheresis. This study aims to collect stem cells by giving two doses of Pegfilgrastim on a single day, instead of 8-12 daily injections of standard filgrastim, following cycle 2 or 3 of ICE chemotherapy. |