Hodgkin's Lymphoma in children and adolescents: A Saint Petersburg Hodgkin's lymphoma group study

Purpose. prospective analysis of the efficacy of the original protocol spbhl-05 was performed. patients and methods. sixty patients with hodgkin's lymphoma (hl) aged less than 18 years old were treated in accordance with spbhl-05 from january 2000,to july 2009. in induction chemotherapy we used vbvp and abvd schedules followed by involved-field radiotherapy. fourteen patients (23,3) with 0-2 adverse factors (the favourable group) received two cycles of chemotherapy (vbvp),25 children (41,7) with 3-4 unfavorable signs (the intermediate group) received two cycles of vbvp alternating with two cycles of abvd,21 patient (35) who had 5 or more adverse prognostic factors (the unfavourable group) received three cycles of vbvp alternating with three cycles of abvd. results. with a median follow-up of 68 months,overall survival (os) at 5 years is 91.3,event-free survival (efs) is 82.8. os in the favourable and intermediate risk group were 100,efs were 92,9 and 90,7,respectively,os and efs in unfavourable risk group77,1 and 55,6,respectively. conclusion. the identification of prognostic risk factors and using medicines with less prominent side effects would be of major importance in the development of new strategies of treatment for childhood hl. copyright 2011 svetlana a. kulyova and boris a. kolygin.