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TUESDAY, April 30, 2019 (HealthDay News) — For patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) with large tumors, limited evidence suggests that consolidation radiotherapy (RT) after chemotherapy may prolong progression-free survival, according to a study presented at ESTRO 38, the annual meeting of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology, held from April 26 to 30 in Milan.<\/p>\n
Umberto Ricardi, M.D., from the University of Turin in Italy, and colleagues recruited 512 patients with advanced-stage HL receiving six cycles of doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD). Those who completed the ABVD regimen and achieved a complete metabolic response were randomly assigned to receive or not receive consolidation RT to bulky lesions.<\/p>\n
Of the 354 patients with a positron emission tomography negative finding after ABVD, 116 had a bulky lesion and were randomly assigned to RT or no further treatment (NFT). The researchers found that progression-free survival (PFS) was similar at three and five years between the RT (92 and 89 percent) and NFT arms (82 percent at both time points) in the intention-to-treat analysis. In a per-protocol analysis, the PFS for RT versus NFT was 91.7 versus 81.4 percent at three years and 88.9 versus 81.5 percent at five years (P = 0.24); these differences were not statistically significant, mainly due to the limited sample and number of events.<\/p>\n
“The results of this trial do not provide definitive evidence on the role of radiotherapy after chemotherapy,” Ricardi said in a statement. “However, the improvement in survival among those who did receive radiotherapy is not negligible.”<\/p>\n
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