Hodgkin's disease in 82 Turkish children diagnosed over a 10-year period: epidemiological, clinical, and histopathologic features and prognosis with prolonged chemotherapy.

In this study, 82 Turkish children with Hodgkin's disease (HD) between 1 and 14 years of age and diagnosed over a 10-year period were evaluated retrospectively. More than half of the patients (54%) presented with advanced stages of HD. Mixed cellularity (MC) was the most frequent (56.1%) histopathologic type, which was followed by nodular sclerosing (NS, 18.3%) in frequency. None of the patients received radiotherapy as initial treatment. In 67 children the COPP regimen alone and in 15 the ABVD regimen alternating with COPP were started, to be given as a total of 12 courses. In the patients who presented with stage I-II HD the overall survival (OAS) rate and 5-year event free survival (EFS) rate were 92.3% and 77.8%, respectively. In the patients with advanced disease (stage III-IV) OAS and 5-year EFS were estimated to be 89.5% and 67.4%, respectively. No serious toxicity of chemotherapy was detected during the follow-up. In this group, clinical, epidemiological and histopathologic features of the disease showed a special pattern close to the type I pattern of HD. Regarding the survival rules and occurrence of low toxicity in our patients, results of prolonged chemotherapy alone seem to be encouraging in most of the children with HD. However, the follow-up duration is not yet sufficient to declare a clear conclusion related to the late complications.