Prognostic factors in pediatric Hodgkin disease

The sensitivity of pediatric Hodgkin disease to radiation and chemotherapy has resulted in cure for most children and adolescents who have been diagnosed in the past three decades. Identification of prognostic factors in clinical trials has allowed for tailoring of therapeutic approaches to improve outcome in sequential trials. Tumor burden, symptoms, clinical features, pathology, response to therapy, biology, and host factors are reviewed in this context. New developments should be directed toward identification of factors associated with biologic mechanisms of disease to facilitate the development of biologically targeted therapies that will be more efficacious and less toxic.