Malignant lymphomas in children. A clinico-pathologic retrospective study. I. Hodgkin's disease.

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Garwicr, S., Landherg, T. and Åkerman, M. (Departments of Paediatrics, Radiotherapy, Cytodiagnostics and Pathology, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden). Malignant lymphomas in children—A clinico‐pathologic retrospective study. I. Hodgkin's Disease. Acta Paediatr Scand,63:673, 1974—Data on 23 children with Hodgkin's disease from a 29‐year period are given. Sixteen were boys and 7 girls. At microscopic review of the biopsy material the lesions were typed according to Lukes. Three had Lymphocyte predominance, 7 had Nodular sclerosing type, and 13 had Mixed cellularity. Viewed with the limited staging procedures that often had been used, 17 patients had at presentation localized disease (stages 1 or II), 4 had generalized lymph‐adenopathy, and 2 had extralymphatic disease. Treatment had been given with radiation therapy or chemotherapy or the two combined. Data on local recurrence after radiotherapy is in line with other reports, indicating that Hodgkin's disease in children responds in the same way to irradiation as in adults. Fifteen of the 23 are still alive mean 69 months after the initial treatment, 6 of them having been followed for at least 8 years. Of 13 patients evaluable for 5‐year survival 6 were alive at 5 years. Children with Hodgkin's disease appear to have similar distribution on histologic types, progression of disease and response to treatment as adults. It seems that similar clinical evaluation procedures and similar therapeutic techniques should he used in Hodgkin's disease in children as in adults.