Chemotherapy combined with involved-field radiotherapy for early-stage Hodgkin lymphoma: effects on outcome and long-term complications

Early-stage Hodgkin Lymphoma(HL) is curable by extended-field radiotherapy alone. To reduce the long-term toxicities and complications with similar overall survival, randomized controlled trials of combined-modality therapy have been investigated nearly two decades. Recent years, many large-scale randomized controlled trials showed superior disease-free survival of combined-modality treatment compared with radiotherapy or chemotherapy alone for early-stage classical HL. Thus, short-course chemotherapy plus involved-field and low-dose radiotherapy is the standard treatment for early-stage HL. With this regimen,several studies have been proved that long-term complications had been reduced, but long-time results should be awaited. Key words: Hodgkin disease; Involved-field; Radiotherapy,computer-assisted