Prognostic factors and treatment outcome in childhood Hodgkin disease

Background. The goals of this study included: (1) Identification of factors prognostic for event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS), and (2) Definition of risk groups for risk adapted therapy in children with Hodgkin disease (HD). Procedure. From 1991 to 2003, 69 children with newly diagnosed, untreated biopsy-proven stage I-IV HD were treated with chemotherapy (CT) and low-dose involved field radiotherapy (LD-IFRT). The relationship of pretreatment factors to EFS and OS was analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis. Results. The 5-year EFS and OS for all patients were 90.77% and 96.22%, respectively with a median follow-up of 73 months (3-137 months). Male to female ratio was 3:1 and 21 children (32.3%) were less than 7 years of age. Mixed cellularity was the predominant histologic subtype (38.5%). Factors associated with inferior EFS by univariate analysis were extranodal disease, hemoglobin level < 11 g/dl, number of involved lymph node regions and stage. By multivariate analysis only stage IV disease was significant. Conclusion. Our study confirms that excellent results are achievable with combined modality therapy in childhood HID. In order to use risk-adapted therapy in children with HID, clinical prognostic factors should be validated with large, multicentered prospective clinical studies.