Does radiotherapy remain an important component in the standard of care for patients with early stage Hodgkin lymphoma?
FAQ published on April 9, 2014
Tim Illidge, BSc, PhD, MRCP, FRCR, FRCPath
Professor of Targeted Therapy and Oncology
School of Cancer and Imaging Sciences
University of Manchester
Manchester Academic Health Science Centre
Manchester Cancer Research Centre
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Manchester, United Kingdom
Professor of Targeted Therapy and Oncology
School of Cancer and Imaging Sciences
University of Manchester
Manchester Academic Health Science Centre
Manchester Cancer Research Centre
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Manchester, United Kingdom
Does radiotherapy remain an important component in the standard of care for patients with early stage Hodgkin lymphoma?
Hello, my name is Dr. Tim Illidge. I work as professor of Targeted Therapy and Oncology at the University of Manchester in the UK. The question that I am commonly asked is, does radiotherapy remain an important component in the standard of care for patients with early stage Hodgkin lymphoma? The short answer to that question is that combined modality treatment using two cycles of ABVD and 20 Gray, as published by Andreas Engert and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine remains the standard of care. The reason why that is being questioned recently is the publication of the HD6 study from Canada using chemotherapy alone and a large-field radiotherapy from the last century showing a survival advantage for patients with chemotherapy. However, it is important to note in that study that there were very small numbers of unusual events that can influence the survival. Importantly, also the patients received between four to six cycles of ABVD, which is associated with chemotherapy-related complications. So, the overall interpretation of that study is that we really need modern randomized controlled trials which compare chemotherapy alone against modern combined modality treatment using abbreviated chemotherapy and modern involved-site radiotherapy before we could really confidently move our patients to treating them with chemotherapy alone. Thank you for your attention.
Last modified: April 9, 2014