OBJECTIVETo improve the long-term prognosis of childhood Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) by standard treatment protocol HL-98.

METHODSPatients were divided into low (R(1)), middle (R(2)) and high-risk (R(3)) groups based on staging, tumor size and with or without B symptoms. Patients of R(1), R(2) and R(3) groups were given 4, 6, and 9 courses of chemotherapy, respectively. Low dose radiotherapy to involved area was given to patients with residual disease at the end of chemotherapy. All patients diagnosed between 1998 and Dec. 2008 were enrolled. The software of SPSS 11.0 was used and the event free survival (EFS) was generated by Kaplan-Meier.

RESULTSThere was a total of 26 patients with male 20 and female 6. The average age was 97 (30 to 179) months and median age 94.5 months. Three patients were in stage I, 4 in stage II, 9 in stage III and 10 in stage IV. Of 26 patients, 24 were found with neck tumor, 12 with mediastinum tumor, 11 with spleen infiltration and 5 with B symptom. Four patients were allocated into R(1) group, 12 R(2) group and 10 R(3) group. Eight of 26 with residual disease received radiotherapy, 7 received 20-26 Gy and 1 received 36 Gy. To Jun 2009, 21 (80.76%) of them kept in complete remission (CR) at 10 to 120 months follow-up (average 36 months, and median 31 months). Five cases relapsed (1 of stage III and 4 of stage IV) within 5 to 12 months. Three out of 4 in stage IV with B symptom relapsed. The estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) was 85.9% and EFS was 73.7%.

CONCLUSIONThe estimated 5-year EFS indicated that protocol HL-98 is reasonable good. Patients of stage I and II can obtain a good prognosis without radiotherapy.