[Initial pattern and evolution of Hodgkin's disease with pulmonary involvement (author's transl)]

Between 1972 and 1975, we treated 20 patients suffering from Hodgkin's disease with initial pulmonary involvement. They all had mediastinal involvement. After 6 months of multi-agent chemotherapy: --4 of the 20 patients entered in complete remission and have stayed free of disease up to now. --8 had kept persistent pulmonary and mediastinal involvement; in spite of further and repeated chemotherapy courses, none of them was put in complete remission. --8 still had lymph node involvement but no more pulmonary involvement; out of these 4 received mantle radiotherapy which resulted in 3 complete remission, and 4 received chemotherapy alone which entailed only one complete remission. On the whole, the percentage of complete remission is 40%. The overall actuarial survival is 40%. No relapse has occured in patients entered in complete remission. These results lead us to underline that, when pulmonary involvement disappears after 6 months of chemotherapy, no pulmonary relapse occurs; the prognosis depending on the sterilization of lymph nodes. On the opposite, when there is still pulmonary involvement after 6 months of chemotherapy, it persists in spite of different and repeated chemotherapy schedules.