[Hodgkin's disease--change of the therapy concept?]

The sometimes too schematically handled therapeutic proceeding in Hodgkin's disease today has been replaced by a more individual strategy. Due to stage-oriented therapeutic regimes today 80-90% of all Hodgkin's disease patients may reach survival periods of 5 years. Therefore the possibility of a definite cure has been achieved. Even in the advanced stages III and IV of the disease, half of the patients is supposed to reach a 5-year survival time. However, one has to observe with great attention in the future, how the gained duration of life as a consequence of combined chemo- and radiotherapy may be abolished by side-effects and risks due to the aggressive therapy.