Autologous and Allogeneic Transplant for Relapsed Lymphoma

Lymphomas are the third most common group of cancers in children and adolescents in the United States. While Hodgkin's Disease (HD) has been described for many years, some subtypes of the non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas (NHL) have only recently been described. Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas traditionally have been classified as low, intermediate or high grade based on their clinical aggressiveness. More recently they have been divided into two major subgroups indolent and aggressive lymphomas by the current National Cancer Institute (NCI/PDQ) reference. Among children, aggressive histologies are prevalent including small non-cleaved cell lymphoma, lymphoblastic lymphoma, and diffuse large cell lymphoma. The most common histologic classifications of childhood non-Hodgkin's lymphoma over the past 30 years has included the morphological schema developed by Rappaport, the morphologically and immunologically based schema of Lukes and Collins, the Kiel classifications, the prognostic sub-groupings of the National Cancer Institute's Working Formulation, and the most recently developed classification that utilizes morphological, immunophenotypic and genetic information in the Revised European-American Lymphoma (REAL) classification.