Jaundice in Hodgkin's disease

Abstract The pertinent literature dealing with jaundice in Hodgkin's disease is reviewed, and an analysis is made of a series of 116 cases of jaundiced patients with Hodgkin's disease observed at the Memorial Center. The pertinent pathologic findings in fifty-seven patients who came to autopsy also are presented. Evaluation of the cause of jaundice in Hodgkin's disease often is difficult. The chief cause of jaundice in our autopsy series was, in order of frequency, liver involvement with Hodgkin's disease (70.2 per cent), no satisfactory pathologic or clinical explanation of jaundice (14 per cent), hemolytic anemia (5.2 per cent), extrahepatic bile duct obstruction due to tumor (3.5 per cent), hepatitis (3.5 per cent), choledocholithiasis (1.8 per cent), cirrhosis (1.8 per cent). The conventional liver function tests were not very helpful in establishing the cause of jaundice. Liver biopsy, whenever feasible and not contraindicated by the danger of hemorrhage, should be used more extensively in order to establish the cause of jaundice. Some therapeutic considerations in the jaundiced patient with Hodgkin's disease are discussed.