One hundred consecutive patients with malignant lymphoma treated with high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation, followed at least 1 yr post-transplant, are reported, 68 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and 32 with Hodgkin's disease. At transplant, 23 patients were in first remission, 69 in later chemosensitive disease and 8 were chemotherapy resistant. Based on previous treatment and stem-cell source, the patients were subdivided into 3 cohorts: BMT1: bone-marrow harvest and transplant after > or =3 treatment regimens (38 patients); BMT2: bone marrow harvest and transplant after less than 3 treatment regimens (24 patients); PBSCT: peripheral-blood stem cell transplant (38 patients, 5 of these with CD34+ cell selected PBSC). The 4-yr survival and progression-free survival of all patients was 45 and 40%, respectively. Forty-one patients have died, 27 of lymphoma, evenly distributed in the cohorts. Fourteen treatment-related deaths occurred, 13 of these in the BMT1 cohort, significantly more than in the other cohorts (p=0.001). In univariate survival analysis cohort, age, disease status at transplant and number of previous treatment regimens were significant. In multivariate survival analysis cohort, age and sex were independently significant, women having a shorter survival. The patients transplanted with unselected PBSC had significantly shorter duration of pancytopenia and hospital stay than the otherwise comparable BMT2 patients, but their progression-free survival was identical. We confirm that high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplant from blood or bone marrow in not-too-heavily pretreated patients is a safe procedure but will cure only half the patients.