Patients

We reviewed the medical records of 72 consecutive patients who underwent high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation for relapsed or refractory DLBCL (43 male/29 female) at XXXX on a single institutional protocol between 2006 and 2014. This institutional protocol provided stringent inclusion criteria for patients to undergo ASCT for relapsed or refractory DLBCL including age <75, Karnofsky performance score (KPS) >80%, and no serious organ dysfunction. Patients with primary refractory disease could be considered for ASCT if they had high risk features including stage IV disease at diagnosis, LDH levels >2 times normal, or >2 extranodal sites of disease. Nine patients (12.5%) had primary refractory disease (with high risk features mentioned above), whereas 63 patients (87.5%) underwent transplant after first relapse. Many patients were in their second or greater CR (n=44). To be eligible for transplant patients had to have responded to pre-transplant conditioning to the extent that they were in remission or had responding disease as determined by pre-transplant CT and PET scans. All patient data was prospectively collected in UMN Bone Marrow Transplantation database. These data were supplemented with details regarding radiation therapy obtained from patient medical records. The Institutional Review board at UMN approved this study.