Demographics
A total of 219 patients with HRHL were referred to the participating
AHOPCA centers. Seven patients were not eligible because of prior
therapy (n=6) or being HIV positive (n=1). Thirty-one were not
evaluable: 20 treated with a different regimen, 6 refused therapy, 4 had
a wrong stage, and 1 died before starting therapy. One hundred
eighty-one patients were evaluable for this report (Figure 1).
Table 1 summarizes demographic data for all subjects. The median age at
presentation was 9 years (range 3-18 years). Twenty-two percent (n=39)
of subjects were younger than 6 years of age at diagnosis, 37% were
ages 6 to 10 (n=67) and 41% (n=75) were 10 or older. There were 146
(81%) males. The predominant histologic subtype was mixed cellularity
in 80 (44%), followed by nodular sclerosis 77 (43%), lymphocyte
predominant in 11 (6%), lymphocyte depleted in 6 (3%) and in seven
(4%), the histologic subtype was not specified. The distribution of
stage at diagnosis was stage IIB 43 (24%), IIIB 84 (46%), IVA 4 (2%)
and IVB 50 (28%).