Outcome of patients experiencing progression or relapse after primary treatment with two cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy for early-stage favorable Hodgkin's lymphoma.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate treatment outcome of patients with early-stage favorable Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) who experience disease relapse after primary treatment with two cycles of chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (RT).


METHODS
Of 1,129 patients with early-stage favorable HL enrolled onto the HD7/HD10/HD13 trials of the German Hodgkin Study Group, 42 patients were identified with treatment failure, of whom eight had primary progressive disease, seven had early relapse (< or = 12 months), and 27 had late relapse (> 12 months). We analyzed this group of patients for risk factors, salvage therapy, and treatment outcome.


RESULTS
The median age was 41 years (range, 19 to 72 years); 24 patients were male, 15 patients had outfield relapse, 13 patients infield relapse, and nine patients outfield and infield relapse. At relapse, 24 patients were treated with conventional salvage chemotherapy, 14 patients were treated with high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem-cell transplantation, and four patients were treated with RT alone. At 36 months median follow-up, freedom from second treatment failure (FF2F) and overall survival (OS) were 52% and 67%, respectively. According to the prognostic score for relapsed HL (duration of first remission, clinical stage, and anemia at relapse), patients with two or three poor prognostic features had a significantly worse outcome compared with patients with none or one of these factors (P < .05 for FF2F and OS).


CONCLUSIONS
Relapse after primary treatment with two cycles of doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine followed by RT is rare. In our analysis, results were influenced by a high treatment-related mortality rate. Additional studies are needed to define the optimal salvage therapy.
Sieniawski
Michal
M
First Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany. Michal.Sieniawski@ncl.ac.uk
Franklin
Jeremy
J
Nogova
Lucia
L
Glossmann
Jan-Peter
JP
Schober
Thomas
T
Nisters-Backes
Hiltrud
H
Diehl
Volker
V
Josting
Andreas
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000628:therapy*; D012074:Remission Induction; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016879:Salvage Therapy; D015996:Survival Rate; D013997:Time Factors