The combination of thalidomide, cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone is potentially useful in highly resistant Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Few diseases have a prognosis worse than Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), patients relapsing after autologous or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Here, we report two highly refractory patients with HL who successfully responded to a combination of thalidomide, cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone (ThaCyDex). Despite the use of a very large number of different drugs (>5 different schemes) including high-dose therapy and autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation, both patients proved to be suffering from a highly resistant disease. Fortunately, they finally responded to the ThaCyDex combination, achieving sustained complete remission that would support the running of a trial within this setting.