Background: To determine whether a high risk group could be identified within a group of patients with advanced stage Hodgkin's disease (HD), the authors applied several prognostic models to patients treated according to the H89 protocol.
Methods: This study included 344 patients with Stage IIIB-IV HD who were treated with chemotherapy alone (8 cycles) or chemotherapy (6 cycles) plus radiation therapy. Four prognostic models were selected for this study: the numeric prognostic index of the Scotland and Newcastle Lymphoma Group, the Christie Hospital (Manchester)-St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London) model, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) model, and the criteria used in the European Bone Marrow Transplant (EBMT)/Intergroup Trial.
Results: Univariate analysis of H89 protocol patients showed that 5 variables included in the models had prognostic significance: age > 45 years (P = 0.0001), anemia (hemoglobin < 12 g/dL for males and < 10 g/dL for females) (P = 0.0001), number of extranodal sites > or = 2 (P = 0.0013), serum lactic acid dehydrogenase greater than the normal value (P = 0.0018), and lymphocyte count < 0.75 x 10(9) L(-1) (P = 0.0063). All four models divided patients into prognostic subgroups. Significant differences among the subgroups were found by log rank analysis (chi-square test = 11-48; P = 0.01-0.0001). The worst prognostic group defined by the MSKCC model (> or = 3 adverse factors) had an overall survival rate of 59% at 3 years and an estimated 3-year event free survival rate of 43%.
Conclusions: Patients with at least three adverse factors according to the MSKCC model or the EBMT criteria had a higher risk of failure with conventional treatment; however, based on survival rate, no very high risk group could be identified. Nonetheless, these prognostic models may be useful to recognize patients with good prognosis who can be cured with conventional therapy and for whom treatment morbidity and mortality can be minimized.