Treatment results of Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Eduardas Aleknavičius, Konstantinas Povilas Valuckas, Birutė Aleknavičienė, Laura Norkienė, Giedrė Smailytė

Institute of Oncology, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Key words: Hodgkin lymphoma; combined treatment; radiotherapy; chemotherapy.

Summary. During last decades, there are strengthening attitudes to optimize the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma considering prognostic groups and risk factors. Based on the data of Vilnius University Clinics, a retrospective study was carried out, and treatment methods and outcomes of the patients treated during 1999–2004 were analyzed. Medical histories of 114 patients younger than 60 years were reviewed. Median age was 28 years. In 83% of cases, classic nodular sclerotic Hodgkin’s lymphoma was diagnosed. Advanced-, intermediate-, and early-stage disease was diagnosed in 55%, 38%, and 7% of cases, respectively.

The patients with early-stage disease underwent four ABVD chemotherapy courses; 88% of them underwent radiotherapy afterwards. The patients with intermediate-stage disease underwent 4–6 courses of ABVD or in minor cases (12% of patients with intermediate-stage disease) – 4 standard BEACOPP chemotherapy courses. After this treatment, 88% of patients with intermediate-stage disease underwent radiotherapy. Patients with advanced-stage disease underwent 8 escalate (44%) or standard BEACOPP (29%) chemotherapy courses. More than half of these patients (71%) underwent radiotherapy after chemotherapy.

Patient follow-up median was 65 months. One hundred seven patients (94%) after primary treatment achieved complete remission, in 7 patients (6%) primary progression was observed, 12 patients (11%) relapsed, and 8 patients died. Overall survival and event-free survival in patients with early-stage disease was 100%. Overall survival in patients with early/intermediate- and advanced-stage disease was 95.1% and 84.0%, respectively. Event-free survival in patients with early/intermediate- and advanced-stage disease was 91.7% and 76.2%, respectively.

In the groups of intermediate- and advanced-stage disease, the results of treatment were worse in the subgroup, which underwent extended-field radiotherapy (P<0.05). Overall survival in the group of patients with advanced-stage disease was the best who underwent ABVD scheme, but the event-free survival (70.6%) and disease-free survival (81.3%) in ABVD subgroup were worse compared to BEACOPP subgroup. According to our results, there was no statistically significant difference in survival of patients with advanced-stage disease who underwent or did not radiotherapy (P>0.05).

Correspondence to E. Aleknavičius, Institute of Oncology, Vilnius University, Santariškių 1, 08660 Vilnius, Lithuania. E-mail: eduardas.aleknavicius@vuoi.lt

Received 10 November 2008, accepted 4 August 2009