Treatment of pediatric hodgkin disease tailored to stage, mediastinal mass, and age an italian (aieop) multicenter study on 215 patients

Abstract

The encouraging results in early-stage disease indicate the validity of using less toxic treatment in this subgroup to maximize quality of life. Patients with bulky mediastinal disease tended to fare worse than those with M/T < 0.33 or without mediastinal involvement (FFP at 7 years: 69.4% versus 93.3%) and showed early local recurrence. In advanced stages, the eight-drug combination regimen (MOPP/ABVD) plus low-dose radiation therapy provided no major improvement in outcome; here, alternative chemotherapeutic regimens should be tested in a large, randomized, clinical trial to evaluate their efficacy and determine the frequency of delayed toxicity.