Hodgkin's Disease

Abstract

The first question that occurs on learning about a book on Hodgkin disease is: Why? The dustcover states that this is a practical definitive reference for oncologists, radiation therapists, internists, and hematologists, as well as pathologists, radiologists, epidemiologists, neurologists, cancer surgeons. This is clearly an admirable goal, but it is not attained in this volume. There is a major problem relating to currency of data. The area of Hodgkin disease is a dynamic one, and recent data relating to survival, lack of efficacy of maintenance chemotherapy, lack of increased infectious complications postsplenectomy in older children and adults, the treatment of hypercalcemia, tolerance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy postsplenectomy, interpretation of lymphograms showing benign reactive follicular hyperplasia, newer antineoplastic agents of now proven efficacy, and protocols and findings of cooperative groups sadly negate many of the conclusions and statements of the authors. The book is extremely provincial in its approach. There is