Treatment of pediatric Hodgkin's lymphoma

Abstract

Today the majority of children and adolescents diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma will enjoy long-term disease-free survival. As a result, contemporary treatment strategies have focused on reducing therapy for patients with favorable disease presentations and reserved aggressive treatment modalities for patients with relapsed or refractory disease. The desire to avoid late treatment toxicity has prompted refinements in therapy designed to reduce growth impairment, second malignancy, and life-threatening organ dysfunction in long-term survivors. Treatment with radiation therapy alone is recommended only for older patients with localized disease who have achieved skeletal maturity, but requires surgical staging and places greater volumes of normal tissues at risk for late carcinogenesis. Treatment with chemotherapy alone avoids the long-term growth, organ dysfunction, and solid tumor induction associated with high-dose, extended-field radiation. However, these protocols prescribe higher cumulative doses of alkylating agent chemotherapy, which may increase the risk of treatment complications from myelosuppression, gonadal injury, and secondary leukemia. Combined modality therapy regimens have resulted in excellent treatment outcomes and reduced the incidence of treatment sequelae by utilizing lower doses and smaller volumes of radiation therapy and fewer cycles of less toxic chemotherapy in clinically staged children. Risk-adapted therapies using two to four cycles of multiagent chemotherapy and lower radiation doses and volumes have maintained excellent disease-free survival rates in clinically staged patients with localized favorable disease presentations. Novel approaches including compacted dose-intensive multiagent chemotherapy are currently under investigation with the objectives of improving outcome and reducing treatment sequelae in patients with advanced and unfavorable disease.