Inclusion Criteria

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

- Diagnosis of follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)

- Bulky stage II, stage III, or stage IV disease

- Bulky disease is defined as any tumor measuring 10.0 cm or more or
occupying ≥ one-third of the chest diameter

- In first, second, third, or fourth relapse after chemotherapy

- Unilateral or bilateral bone marrow aspirate and biopsy with cytogenetics within
the past 42 days

- Tumor CD20 positive by either flow cytometry or immunoperoxidase staining of paraffin
sections using anti-CD20 antibodies

- Bidimensionally measurable disease

- Patients with non-measurable disease in addition to measurable disease must have
all non-measurable disease assessed within the past 42 days

- No presence of CNS lymphoma

- No chronic lymphocytic leukemia

- No HIV- or AIDS-related lymphoma

- No presence of pleural effusion

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

- Zubrod performance status 0-2

- ANC ≥ 1,500/μL (unless decreased counts are due to marrow involvement with NHL)

- Platelet count > 100,000/μL (unless decreased counts are due to marrow involvement
with NHL)

- Serum creatinine ≤ 2.0 mg/dL

- Creatinine clearance ≤ 50 mL/min

- Serum bilirubin ≤ 2.0 mg/dL

- No renal insufficiency or renal failure

- No known HIV positivity

- Not pregnant or nursing

- No prior malignancy except for adequately treated basal cell or squamous cell skin
cancer, in situ cervical cancer, or other cancer with 5-year disease-free status

- No impaired bone marrow reserve, including any of the following:

- Hypocellular bone marrow (cellularity ≤ 15%)

- Marked ( ≥ 10%) reduction in bone marrow precursors of one or more cell lines
(granulocytic, megakaryocytic, erythroid) (beyond that which would be expected
for the patient's age and bone marrow cellularity)

- History of failed stem cell collection

- No serious, non-malignant disease or infection which, in the opinion of the
investigator and/or sponsor, would compromise other protocol objectives

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

- At least 3 weeks since all prior therapy (6 weeks for rituximab) and recovered

- No prior myeloablative therapies with autologous bone marrow transplantation or
peripheral blood stem cell rescue

- No prior radioimmunotherapy

- No prior external beam radiotherapy to > 25% of active bone marrow (involved field or
regional)

- More than 4 weeks since prior major surgery, other than diagnostic surgery