Survival rates of adult patients with Hodgkin lymphoma who underwent ABVD versus escalated BEACOPP in a resource-limited country: An observational study.

BACKGROUND: The survival rate of adult patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) depends on the responses to standard chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or combined therapy. Resource-limited countries face numerous obstacles in supporting patients with HL who undergo chemotherapy, especially in advanced stages. AIM: To analyze the survival outcomes of adult patients with HL after combined-modality treatment (CMT) with involved-field or non-involved-field radiotherapy. METHODS AND RESULTS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 90 adult patients with HL who received CMT at Rajavithi Hospital, Bangkok between 2007 and 2021. Patients with stage I-IV disease received different therapies depending on their risk group. The risk groups were evaluated according to initial response, bulky disease, and B symptoms. Patients (n = 90) who underwent CMT were followed up for 34.7 months (range, 1-141 months). The median follow-up periods of early and advanced-stage patients were 53.1 months and 23.5 months, respectively. The estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates of patients with advanced-stage diseases were 85% and 62%, respectively. There was a difference in the 3-year overall survival among advance-stage patients who underwent ABVD (94%) compared to those administered BEACOPPesc (50%), and the 3-year PFS (84%) among patients who underwent ABVD was higher than that among those administered BEACOPPesc (66%). Radiotherapy increased toxicity but did not improve the survival rate. CONCLUSION: Chemotherapy administered to patients with advanced-stage adult HL was more effective than BEACOPPesc when ABVD was administered. Our findings are relevant for hospitals with limited resources.

The reliability of FEbrile Neutropenia after ChEmotherapy (FENCE) scores in predicting granulocyte colony-stimulating factor breakthrough febrile neutropenia among patients with lymphoma undergoing first-cycle chemotherapy: A prospective observational study.

Background: A tool for estimating risk of febrile neutropenia (FN) after chemotherapy, namely the FEbrile Neutropenia after ChEmotherapy (FENCE) score, has been developed but has not been widely validated. This study aimed to validate the FENCE score as a tool for predicting granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) breakthrough FN among patients with lymphoma who underwent chemotherapy. Methods: This was a prospective observational study of treatment-naive adult patients with lymphoma who underwent their first cycle of chemotherapy between 2020 and 2021. The patients were followed up until the next cycle of chemotherapy to identify any infection events. Results: Among the 135 patients with lymphoma, 62 (50%) were men. In a comparison of the value of each FENCE parameter for predicting G-CSF breakthrough infection, the parameter of advanced-stage disease showed high sensitivity of 92.8%, and receipt of platinum chemotherapy showed high specificity of 95.33%. With a FENCE score of 12 as a cutoff for low risk, analysis across all patients with lymphoma resulted in a high AUROCC of 0.63 (95% CI = 0.5-0.74%; p = 0.059), and analysis across only patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) resulted in an AUROCC of 0.65 (95% CI = 0.51-0.79%; p = 0.046). With a cutoff point of 12, FENCE score can predict breakthrough infection events at 30.0% (95% CI = 17.8-47.4%). Conclusion: This study divided patients with lymphoma into risk groups according to FENCE score, showing that this instrument has discriminatory ability in predicting FN events, these being more likely to occur in patients in the intermediate- and high-risk groups. Multicenter studies are needed to validate this clinical risk score.