Treatment of Relapsed Hodgkin Lymphoma

Eom, Hyeon Seok

Abstract

Hodgkin lymphoma has been a curable disease, however some patients have relapsed or refractory disease. The standard treatment of these patients is salvage chemotherapy followed by high dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplant (HDT with ASCT) in patients who are chemotherapy-sensitive. Some portion of the patients not eligible for HDT with ASCT because of old age, chemo-refractory and major comorbidities, can be offered alternative approaches such as radiotherapy or conventional chemotherapy. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation could give some benefit in terms of a raft-versus-lymphoma effect. However due to significant toxicity, this approach should be recommended in the context of clinical trials. Biologic markers are served as prognostic markers as well as therapeutic targets. New therapies including novel agents and immune cell therapies are currently being developed. Immune modulatory and immune cell therapies can be effective even in chemo-refractory patients. Efforts should be focused on progression to overcome tumor evasion mechanism and development of better treatment strategies.