Panobinostat in Treating Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Inclusion Criteria * Biopsy-proven relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma requiring treatment, who have failed, unable to tolerate, or refused other available active therapies; patients should not have other treatment options considered curative (NOTE: for patients with lymphoma without CNS involvement, a re-biopsy is necessary unless the patient has had a previous biopsy =\< 6 months prior to treatment on this protocol if there has been no intervening treatment; patients with biopsy-proven CNS lymphoma at any time are not required to have a rebiopsy to be eligible for this study); NOTE: relapsed NHL is defined as NHL that relapses after at least one prior therapy and does not have available curative therapy; refractory NHL is defined as NHL that has progressed or not responded to most recent therapy and has had at least one prior therapy and have no available curative therapies * Measurable disease by CT or MRI or the CT portion of the PET/CT: must have at least one lesion that has a single diameter of \>= 2 cm or tumor cells in the blood \>= 5 x 10\^9/L; skin lesions can be used if the area is \>= 2 cm in at least one diameter and photographed with a ruler * The following disease types are eligible: transformed lymphomas: diffuse large B cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma grade III; precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma; mediastinal (thymic) large B-cell lymphoma; Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia; precursor T-lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma; prima…