Correlates of survival after initiation of chemotherapy in 142 cases of Hodgkin's disease

✍ Scribed by Alan Rapoport; Philip Cole; John Mason

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 413 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(196908)24:2<377::aid-cncr2820240220>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

A series of 142 patients with Hodgkin's disease of the nodular sclerosis and mixed histologic types who received chemotherapy is presented. Seventy-six of the patients had received radiotherapy before chemotherapy. The median survival after institution of chemotherapy was 20 months. Regardless of sex or histologic type, the 10-29 age group significantly outlived the 60+ age group. The nodular sclerosis histologic type was superior to the mixed type only within the 30-59 age group. Within any particular age-histology subgroup, the females did not significantly outlive the males. Overall, however, the fe- males tended to be younger than the males and to have more nodular sclerosis, both of which conferred an advantage. The data also suggest that chemotherapy in Hodgkin's disease may prolong life.

T IS GENERALLY RECOGNIZED THAT THE PRIN-I cipal factor determining the prognosis of a patient with Hodgkin's disease is the stage of the disease at diagnosis.l.14 I n early stages it is possible to irradiate all involved areas, and some hope of cure may be entertained. Unfortunately, at least 25% (our estimate based on ref. 6) of newly diagnosed patients do not have localized disease and are not candidates for "curative" radiotherapy. Even i n the group in which such is attempted, at least one third will die of their illness.6 We therefore conclude that about 50% of all patients require chemotherapy at some time. This study was undertaken because of the size of From the Huntington Laboratories at the Massa-