Inclusion Criteria

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

- Histologic diagnosis of grade 1, 2, 3, or transformed follicular lymphoma

- Achieved a complete or partial response to last salvage therapy

- Completed salvage therapy within the past 12 weeks

- No disease progression since last salvage therapy

- One of the following disease statuses must have been present prior to receiving
salvage therapy

- Refractory to last anti-lymphoma therapy

- Last remission duration less than 1½ years if salvage therapy is 3rd regimen

- Last remission duration less than 3 years if salvage therapy is 2nd regimen

- Minimum of 2 x 10^6 CD34+ cells/kg cryopreserved and available for hematopoietic stem
cell support

- No leptomeningeal disease or brain parenchyma involvement

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

- Cardiac ejection fraction > 50%

- If over 60 years of age, no evidence of cardiac ischemia by treadmill stress
test (stress echo or sesta-MIBI)

- Adjusted diffusing capacity ≥ 50% of the predicted value on pulmonary function
testing

- Creatinine ≤ 1.5 mg/dL OR creatinine clearance > 50 mL/min

- ANC > 1,000/μL

- Platelet count > 50,000/μL

- Total bilirubin ≤ 2.0 mg/dL (≤ 3.0 mg/dL if Gilbert's disease is suspected)

- Not pregnant or breast-feeding

- Fertile patients must use an acceptable form of birth control

- HIV I or II negative

- No acute or chronic hepatitis B

- No active hepatitis C

- No medical illness (unrelated to non-Hodgkin lymphoma), including malignancies that,
in the opinion of the attending physician and/or principal investigator, would
preclude study treatment

- No other malignancy within the past 5 years except curatively treated cutaneous basal
cell or squamous cell carcinoma or carcinoma in situ of the cervix

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

- No more than 3 prior anti-lymphoma regimens, inclusive of the salvage therapy

- Biologic agents (e.g., monoclonal antibodies and vaccines) administered as part
of a planned treatment regimen will not be considered distinct regimens

- Chemotherapy administered primarily for the purpose of stem cell mobilization
(e.g., cyclophosphamide at 2-4 g/m²) will not be considered an anti-lymphoma
regimen

- No prior autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation