Acute and chronic pulmonary complications following autologous bone marrow transplantation in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Whereas intensive chemoradiotherapy with bone marrow salvage may be the only chance for cure in a number of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, high complication rates with subsequent mortality have been detrimental to our ability to cure many patients. Prominent among these complications is pulmonary toxicity, in the form of acute and infectious complications and interstitial pneumonitis. We report here our experience with 100 patients receiving autologous bone marrow transplants for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The incidence of interstitial pneumonitis (IP) was 7.6% and our mortality from IP was 1%, the lowest reported.