Hodgkin's disease in the elderly: improved treatment outcome with a doxorubicin-containing regimen.
PURPOSE: Hodgkin's disease (HD) is a malignancy that displays a bimodal age distribution. Previous reports of treatment in patients greater-than-or-equal 60 years have found a poor outcome, particularly in patients with advanced disease. Because of an improved side-effect profile, the regimen of chlorambucil, vinblastine, procarbazine, and prednisone (ChlVPP) has been proposed for use in elderly patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From September 1982 to May 1998, 262 patients with previously untreated HD received either ChlVPP (n = 176) or ChlVPP plus doxorubicin/bleomycin/vincristine (ChlVPP/ABV hybrid; n = 86). Fifty-six patients were greater-than-or-equal 60 years old, and 206 were younger than 60 years. RESULTS: The 5-year overall survival (OS; 87% v 39%) and the 5-year event-free survival ( EFS; 75% v 31%) favored patients younger than 60 years of age. Prognostic factors analyzed in patients greater-than-or-equal 60 years of age, other than type of therapy, included sex, stage, Karnofsky performance score, lactic dehydrogenase, number of extranodal sites, B symptoms, size of largest mass, and histologic subtype. In patients older than 60 years, none of the clinical features was a statistically significant predictor of EFS; however, ChlVPP/ABV hybrid was associated with a decreased risk of an event (relative risk, 0.40; 95% confidence interval, 0.19 to 0.83; P =.014) compared with ChlVPP. The 5-year OS for patients greater-than-or-equal 60 years who received ChlVPP was 30%, compared with 67% for those patients receiving the ChlVPP/ABV regimen (P =.0086) CONCLUSION: Patients greater-than-or-equal 60 years with HD who require chemotherapy are better treated with ChlVPP/ABV hybrid than with ChlVPP alone.[1]References
- Hodgkin's disease in the elderly: improved treatment outcome with a doxorubicin-containing regimen. Weekes, C.D., Vose, J.M., Lynch, J.C., Weisenburger, D.D., Bierman, P.J., Greiner, T., Bociek, G., Enke, C., Bast, M., Chan, W.C., Armitage, J.O. J. Clin. Oncol. (2002) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg