DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of peripheral T-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

  • Newly diagnosed, relapsed or progressing disease after 1 prior treatment with a non-platinum based chemotherapy (e.g., CHOP)
  • Bulky stage II or stage III or IV disease

• The following histologies are not eligible:

  • T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia
  • T-cell large granular lymphocytic leukemia
  • Any NK-cell leukemia
  • Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma
  • Mycosis fungoides/Sézary syndrome
  • Lymphomatoid papulosis
  • Nasal-type extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma
  • Enteropathy-type T-cell lymphoma
  • Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma
  • Subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma
  • Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma
  • Primary cutaneous anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL)

  • ALCL with CD30, ALK, and EMA expression

    • ALCL morphology that fails to express ALK or EMA allowed provided T-cell lineage is confirmed by immunotyping or genetic testing
• Bidimensionally measurable disease

• Adequate samples (e.g., core biopsies, especially multiple core biopsies) from the original diagnostic specimen available

  • Needle aspiration or cytology is not considered adequate samples
• No clinical evidence of CNS involvement by lymphoma

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 18 and over

Performance status

• Zubrod 0-2

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• Absolute neutrophil count ≥ 1,500/mm^3
• Platelet count ≥ 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic

• Bilirubin ≤ 2 times upper limit of normal

Renal

• Creatinine clearance ≥ 30 mL/min

Cardiovascular

• No history of congestive heart failure
• No history of myocardial infarction
• No history of unstable angina
• No history of asymptomatic arrhythmias
• Ejection fraction normal by MUGA scan (for patients with questionable cardiac history)
• No other history of impaired cardiac status

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• No known HIV positivity
• Mild clinical hearing loss allowed provided patient is willing to accept the potential for worsening of hearing loss
• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except adequately treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer or carcinoma in situ of the cervix
• Must have had a chest x-ray or CT scan of the chest and a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis within the past 28 days

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• At least 3 weeks since prior biologic therapy
• No concurrent routine use of bone marrow colony-stimulating factors

Chemotherapy

• No other concurrent chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• No prior radiotherapy for this cancer
• No concurrent radiotherapy

Surgery

• Not specified

Other

• No prior cytotoxic therapy for this cancer
• Concurrent enrollment in SWOG-8819 or SWOG-8947 allowed