The Clinical Evaluation and Staging of Patients with Malignant Lymphoma

Abstract

During the past decade there have been significant changes in our attitude toward patients with malignant lymphoma, especially those with Hodgkin’s disease. There has been a gradually increasing optimism in the aggressive approach to such patients based upon improvement in our therapeutic modalities and the projected curative results now possible. In parallel with these developments has been a much greater interest and skill in the clinical evaluation and study of the untreated patient with malignant lymphoma. Logical therapeutic decisions cannot be made without an accurate assessment of the extent of disease in these patients: to identify those patients who may benefit from aggressive radiotherapeutic approaches and similarly to identify those who should be approached primarily with chemotherapy. Clinical investigations of therapeutic programs have provided significant information in the untreated patients relating to their extent of disease, patterns of disease presentation, and the value of various diagnostic techniques for identifying the sites of malignant lymphoma. These data have important implications as to the value of current and proposed staging systems.

From the Departments of Medicine and Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine. Data reported herein obtained from studies in collaboration with Henry S. Kaplan, M. D., supported, in part, by USPHS Grant CA 05838.