Prognostic factors in pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma: experience from a developing country

Abstract

Pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma is a curable malignancy. The prognostic factors in the low- and middle-income countries are different from the high-income countries. Data of 106 children, including 84 (79.2%) boys and 22 (20.8%) girls were examined. The mean age at presentation was 7.55 ± 2.74 years. Fifty-nine (55.7%) cases had B symptoms. Stage I disease was documented in 11 (10.4%) cases, stage II in 34 (32.1%), stage III in 43 (40.6%), and stage IV in 18 (17%) cases. In univariate analysis, delayed start of treatment (p ≤ .001), anti-tuberculosis therapy (p ≤ .001), nutritional status (p = .006), B symptoms (p = .036), histological subtype (p ≤ .001), bone marrow (p = .001), and pulmonary involvement (p = .001), significantly affected overall survival (OS). The multivariate model demonstrated that a delay in therapy initiation of more than one year was a significant adverse factor. With a median follow-up time of 36.26 ± 27.47 months, EFS and OS was 80.2% and 91.5% respectively.

Keywords:

• Hodgkin lymphoma
• prognostic factors
• developing country
• Pakistan
• Euronet PHL protocol

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.