Hodgkin's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Hodgkin's Disease, including details on causes, cancer, lymphoma, stages, symptoms.

Management of relapsed and refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma in children and adolescents.

Daw S, Wynn R, Wallace H

Children and Young People's Cancer Service, University College Hospital London, London, UK. stephen.daw@uclh.nhs.uk

There are a number of options for salvage treatment in children and adolescents with relapsed and refractory classical Hodgkin Lymphoma. These include salvage with standard dose chemotherapy, high dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplant, allogeneic stem cell transplant or other novel approach. Radiotherapy has an important role in the salvage of some patients as part of a combined modality approach. This review outlines these salvage approaches and discusses whether the evidence from paediatric studies justifies a risk-adapted approach to salvage for individual patients or whether all patients should receive consolidation with high dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation, which is often described as standard salvage management in adults. The important prognostic factors and how these may be used to allocate patients to standard versus high dose chemotherapy regimens are discussed. The role of allogeneic transplantation, novel agents and late effects will also be discussed.

Published 12 January 2011 in Br J Haematol, 152(3): 249-60.
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