RATIONALE: Interleukin-12 may kill tumor cells by stopping blood flow to the tumor and by stimulating a person's white blood cells to kill lymphoma cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of interleukin-12 in treating patients with previously treated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or Hodgkin's disease.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the response rate of interleukin-12 in previously treated patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or Hodgkin's disease.

OUTLINE: Patients are stratified according to disease characteristics: low grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (follicular small cleaved, follicular mixed, small lymphocytic, and variants) versus intermediate grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (follicular large, diffuse large, diffuse mixed, immunoblastic, peripheral T-cell, and mantle cell) versus Hodgkin's disease.

Patients receive interleukin-12 subcutaneously twice a week. Treatment repeats every 3 weeks in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 36-105 patients will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Previously treated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (all histologies except lymphoblastic and Burkitt's lymphoma) or Hodgkin's disease
• Maximum of 4 previous treatment regimens
• Measurable disease
• No CNS involvement NOTE: A new classification scheme for adult non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has been adopted by PDQ. The terminology of "indolent" or "aggressive" lymphoma will replace the former terminology of "low", "intermediate", or "high" grade lymphoma. However, this protocol uses the former terminology.

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 16 and over

Performance status:

• Zubrod 0-1
• Karnofsky 80-100%

Life expectancy:

• At least 12 weeks

Hematopoietic:

• Platelet count at least 75,000/mm^3
• Absolute neutrophil count greater than 1500/mm^3
• Lymphocyte count greater than 500/mm^3
• Hemoglobin at least 8.0 g/dL

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin less than 1.5 mg/dL
• SGOT/SGPT less than 2 times normal

Renal:

• Creatinine no greater than 1.6 mg/dL
• Creatinine clearance at least 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• No severe cardiovascular disease including active ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, or major arrhythmias

Pulmonary:

• No severe pulmonary disease including dyspnea with moderate to severe exertion

Other:

• HIV negative
• No active infection
• Not pregnant or nursing
• Fertile patients must use adequate contraception
• No clinically significant autoimmune disease (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis)
• No clinically significant gastrointestinal bleeding or uncontrolled peptic ulcer

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• No prior allogeneic bone marrow or stem cell transplant
• At least 3 weeks since prior biologic therapy for lymphoma

Chemotherapy:

• At least 3 weeks since prior chemotherapy for lymphoma

Endocrine therapy:

• No concurrent steroid therapy
• At least 3 weeks since prior endocrine therapy for lymphoma

Radiotherapy:

• At least 3 weeks since prior radiotherapy for lymphoma

Surgery:

• At least 2 weeks since prior surgery