Outcome of Patients Experiencing Progression or Relapse After Primary Treatment With Two Cycles of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy for Early-Stage Favorable Hodgkin's Lymphoma

Purpose 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). Patients and 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 (≤ 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 pati...