Abstract
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is usually cured by first-line therapy: in patients in initial stages with unfavorable features relapses occur in 10-15 % of cases and in up to 20 % of patients in advanced stages of HL. The most important prognostic factor at first relapse is chemosensitivity to salvage therapy.
No standard salvage regimen is currently recommended, but cisplatinum or carboplatinum based regimens are most widely used. Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is superior over conventional chemotherapy and remains the standard of treatment in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma patients.
Tandem transplantation is indicated in poor-risk patients at relapse. ASCT failures occur in approximately 50% of these patients during the follow-up.
Experimental approaches after ASCT failure include new agents. The second ASCT is another experimental method.
The role of myeloablative allogeneic SCT in multiple relapses of HL is still unclear due to its high treatment-related mortality. Allogeneic transplantation with reduced intensity regimens reduced transplant-related mortality, but even this therapy did not prevent relapses/progressions in about a half or two-thirds of patients.