Staging of Hodgkin's disease: a surgical perspective

Staging laparotomy, consisting of splenectomy and biopsies of liver, lymph nodes, and bone marrow, is a very useful adjunct in the workup of a patient with Hodgkin's disease. In this series of 400 patients, 1.0 per cent required reoperations for complication, 3.7 per cent had major complications, and 14.0 per cent had minor complications from the operation. Further evidence of Hodgkin's disease was discovered in 42.0 per cent of the cases and a change from the clinical to the pathologic stage occurred in 27.5 per cent of these cases. The surgeon's task in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease and other malignant diseases is to document and mark the areas of involvement so that accurate and appropriate therapy can be given, while morbidity and mortality are minimized.