Managing Risk in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Approximately 90% of patients with limited-stage Hodgkin lymphoma are cured. The cure rate in advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma is dramatically better than it once was, but it is still lower than the rate in patients with limited disease. The choice of treatment is based on several factors, including symptoms, disease stage, extent of tumor burden, and prognosis. Positron emission tomography scanning can be used to assess the patient's stage of disease, which can allow further individualization of therapy. Traditional frontline treatment options include doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) and, for high-risk patients, bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone (BEACOPP). Autologous stem cell transplantation cures approximately 50% of patients. The antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin is very active in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. Data presented at the 2014 meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) showed that brentuximab vedotin was beneficial in several settings, including as consolidation therapy posttransplant in patients at high risk for relapse, as first-line salvage therapy in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma prior to autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation, and in combination with bendamustine in relapsed/refractory disease. The ASH meeting also offered promising data on novel agents, such as the programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) inhibitors. In this monograph, 4 experts in the management of Hodgkin lymphoma discuss various aspects of the disease and provide their perspectives on the new data presented at the ASH meeting.