An evaluation of intraabdominal involvement in Hodgkin disease

An analysis of the staging procedure in 80 patients with histologically confirmed Hodgkin disease was performed at Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay. There was a marked male preponderance. The mixed cellularity type of Hodgkin disease is the commonest histological variety (47.5%) and has the highest incidence of subsequently proven generalized disease (76%). The lymphocytic predominant variety was the next most common (27.5%) and was present as unsuspected disease in 45% of cases. Systemic symptoms were associated with advanced disease in 57% of clinical IB and 73% of clinical IIB cases. Splenic involvement was histologically confirmed in 41% of cases with stage I disease and 52% of cases with stage II disease and was associated with liver involvement in two cases. A lymphogram was performed, in addition, prior to the laparotomy in 40 cases and the lymphogram-laparotomy concordance was approximately 72% in our series. This stresses the importance of a staging laparotomy.