Salvage Radiotherapy in Patients With Relapsed and Refractory Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: A Retrospective Analysis From the German Hodgkin Lymphoma Study Group

Purpose To evaluate treatment outcome and prognostic factors in patients with refractory or first relapsed Hodgkin’s disease (HD) treated with salvage radiotherapy (SRT) alone. Patients and Methods From 4,754 patients registered in the database of the German Hodgkin Study Group from 1988 to 1999, 624 patients were identified with progressive disease (n = 202), or with early (n = 170) or late (n = 252) relapsed HD. At first treatment failure, SRT alone was given to 100 patients. Patient characteristics were: median age, 36 years; progressive disease, 47%; early relapse, 23%; late relapse, 30%; and “B” symptoms, 14%. Eighty-five percent of the patients relapsed after cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone/doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (COPP/ABVD) –like regimens; 8% after bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone (BEACOPP) regimens, 7% after first-line radiotherapy alone. Results The volume irradiated was mantle ...