Combination Chemotherapy in Treating Children With Refractory or Relapsed Hodgkin's Lymphoma

OBJECTIVES: * Determine the response rate (overall and within strata) in both minimally pretreated, low-risk and heavily pretreated, high-risk children with refractory or relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with ifosfamide and vinorelbine with filgrastim (G-CSF). * Determine the cardiac, hepatic, renal, and hematologic toxicity of this regimen in minimally-pretreated, low-risk patients. * Determine the toxic death rate in minimally pretreated, low-risk patients treated with this regimen. * Determine whether this treatment regimen can mobilize sufficient hematopoietic stem cells (CD34) for subsequent stem cell transplantation in minimally pretreated, low-risk patients. * Determine the incidence of hypermutability by longitudinal genotoxic biomonitoring of patients treated with this regimen. * Determine the prognostic significance of biological markers, including serum interleukin (IL)-10 receptor, serum IL-2 receptor, p53, and mdm-2 in patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients are stratified by prior therapy (minimally pretreated, low-risk vs heavily pretreated, high-risk). Patients receive ifosfamide IV over 24 hours on days 1-4 and vinorelbine IV over 6-10 minutes on days 1 and 5. Patients also receive filgrastim (G-CSF) subcutaneously or IV over 15-30 minutes beginning 24-36 hours after completion of vinorelbine and continuing daily until blood counts recover. Treatment repeats at least every 21 days for 2 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients may receive a third course of therapy at the discretion of the investigator. Heavily pretreated, high-risk patients who achieve a complete response are eligible for stem cell transplantation. Patients undergo peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection during hematopoietic recovery after the second course of chemotherapy. Patients with sufficient PBSCs collected may undergo PBSC transplantation on protocol COG-AHOD0121. Patients are followed at 1, 6, and 12 months and then periodically thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 66 patients will be accrued for this study within 1.5 years.