Oupatient programs of myeloablative chemotherapy, autologous and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

Stimulated by the economic constraints in developing countries, we have been interested in changes in the therapeutic approaches to hematologic malignancies that may result in both simplification and reduction of costs.1-4 One of the changes that has been shown to result in diminished costs of the modern effective therapeutic regimens is the completion of the procedures on an outpatient basis. Accordingly, we have engaged in studies to analyze the effectiveness of outpatient treatments for hematologic malignancies in three areas: outpatient delivery of myeloablative chemotherapy in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), outpatient autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and outpatient allogeneic BMT.