Treatment of childhood Hodgkin’s disease with chemotherapy alone

Abstract

The essential feature of childhood is growth and development, culminating in a mature adult. Pediatric oncologists face a particular dilemma when planning the best methods of treatment of life-threatening disease. The cure of children should be achieved at the lowest possible cost to their growth and development. Truly cured individuals are those whose physical and mental health is comparable to their age- and sex-matched peers in their social strata. In Wilms’ tumor and acute lymphocytic leukemia, the intensity of treatment, which has irreversible consequences on growth and development, is being decreased. In childhood Hodgkin’s disease, similar attempts are under way to eliminate the consequences of irradiation of growing tissues and postsplenectomy infections, and to reduce the cumulative toxicity of chemotherapy, surgery, and irradiation (Table 1).