ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is an uncommon lymphoid malignancy with an incidence of about 3 per 100,000 in Western Europe and the United States. Occurring at all ages, the incidence of HL peaks in young adults, and a second, smaller peak is seen after age 60. The diagnosis is made based on an adequate tissue biopsy demonstrating multinucleate Reed-Sternberg cells and their mononuclear variants, which constitute only about 1% to 10% of the total cell population, in an appropriate cellular background (1). With modern diagnostic evaluation and therapy, HL is curable in every stage, leading to emphasis on minimizing adverse effects of treatment and optimizing survivorship. Although clinical factors are prognostic, they are not adequate to reliably identify individual patients at risk for treatment failure. Therefore, ongoing investigative efforts aim to adapt a therapy to early response, identify predictive tissue biomarkers at diagnosis, and develop novel therapeutics targeted to HL.
