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Research Article

Pleural effusions in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma: clinical predictors and associations with outcome

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Pages 1822-1826 | Received 25 Apr 2013, Accepted 14 Aug 2013, Published online: 04 Feb 2014
 

Abstract

Pleural effusions are common in Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). However, little is known about their prognostic significance. One hundred and ten patients with HL who presented to the University of Rochester from 1 January 2003 to 12 December 2010 were reviewed. Pleural effusions were evaluated on review of diagnostic-quality computed tomography (CT) scans. Pleural effusions were present in 26/110 patients: 1/7 (14%) stage I, 11/61 (18%) stage II, 3/18 (17%) stage III and 11/24 (46%) stage IV, and 25/91 (27%) patients had mediastinal involvement, 16/38 (42%) patients had extranodal involvement (any) and 5/14 (35%) patients had E lesions (direct extension to extranodal tissue). Unilateral and bilateral pleural effusions were equally prevalent. Survival analysis demonstrated decreased overall survival for patients with pleural effusions of borderline significance for stage I–IV (p = 0.055) but failed to show significance for patients with stage I–III (p = 0.115). Increasing stage, any extranodal involvement and bulky mediastinal disease were each predictive of pleural effusions. The presence of pleural effusion at presentation may be predictive of inferior survival for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mrs. Laura Finger for editorial assistance.

Potential conflict of interest:

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal.

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