Treatment of early relapsing or resistant non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and Hodgkin's disease (HD) remains problematic. High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplantation improves the prognosis for patients in response following standard dose regimens. We adopted the strategy of using salvage chemotherapy to debulk disease and simultaneously mobilize stem cells. We used regimens based on ifosfamide and etoposide because these drugs are not usually used as the front-line treatment. Twenty-seven patients with NHL received MINE chemotherapy (mesna and ifosfamide 1330 mg/m2 and etoposide 65 mg/m2 i.v. days 1-3, and mitoxantrone 8 mg/m2 i.v. day 1). The same schedule, but higher doses were used for PBSC stimulation (mesna, ifosfamide 1700 mg/m2, etoposide 175 mg/m2, mitoxantrone 10 mg/m2). Forty-six patients with HD received VIM chemotherapy (mesna, ifosfamide 1200 mg/m2 i.v. days 1-5, etoposide 90 mg/m2 i.v. days 1, 3, and 5, methotrexate 30 mg/m2 i.v. days 1 and 5). After both VIM and high dose MINE, chemotherapy for mobilization was followed by G-CSF administered at a dose 5-16 micrograms/kg/day depending on the clinicians judgement of the patient's pretreatment. Complete response after VIM and MINE were 39% and 38%, respectively; partial response (PR) rates were 17% and 29%, and stable disease (SD) 25% and 4%, respectively. In both groups, patients with relapsing disease had better responses than did those with primary progressive disease. Both regimens exhibited excellent mobilizing capacity. We performed 213 aphereses with a median 3 per patient starting on either day 13 as a median for VIM, or on day 12 as a median for MINE. In the majority of patients, the collection started in the time interval median +/- 1 day (n = 62, 85%). The median yields were 10.6 x 10(6) CD34+ cells/kg and 53.1 x 10(4) CFU-GM/kg for VIM, and 13.3 x 10(6) CD34+ cells/kg and 54.5 x 10(4) CFU-GM/kg for MINE. We collected at least 2.5 x 10(6) CD34+ cells/kg in all but six patients (8%), and the harvested amount of CD34+ cells was less than 1.0 x 10(6)/kg in only two patients (3%). The toxicity of VIM and MINE was minimal and chemotherapy-induced trombocytopenia did not occur with PBSC collection.