International Database on Hodgkin's Disease: a cooperative effort to determine treatment outcome

In an effort to better determine the outcome of patients treated for Hodgkin's disease, twenty institutions/cooperative groups in the western world agreed in 1988 to participate in the development of a large data base by sending data to be analyzed by a common statistical design. Data was obtained from both patients randomized on prospective trials and patients treated by standard protocol but not randomized. Overall statistics on 14,315 adult patients treated from the early 1960s to 1987 were collected. This data was first presented at the Paris International Workshop and Symposium held on June 28-30, 1989. The proceedings, published in 1990, include a detailed description of the data, and prognostic studies on laparotomy findings, response to initial therapy, relapse-free survival, overall survival, and secondary malignancies. The International Database on Hodgkin's Disease represents a compromise between two more classical approaches such as the use of randomized trials and metaanalyses. It should serve as a model for the study of other types of cancer. It has been successful because of interest, time, and the cooperation of physicians in academic centers from much of the western world.