Hodgkin Lymphoma

Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a malignant neoplasm of the lymphatic system. The malignant cell clone derives from germinal center B lymphocytes in ~98% of cases, the rest being of T-lymphocyte origin. Each year, HL is diagnosed in roughly 66,000 individuals worldwide. HL is curable with modern therapy in the vast majority of patients, with five-year survival rates exceeding 90% for early-stage disease. However, so far this excellent prognosis has been achieved at the expense of a high incidence of severe long-term treatment complications such as secondary malignancies, and endocrine and cardiovascular diseases. In affluent Western countries, HL occurrence follows a distinctive and unusual bimodal age distribution, with one incidence peak among adolescents and younger adults and another in older adults. In socioeconomically less affluent populations, in contrast, the adolescent and younger-adult incidence peak is less pronounced, whereas incidence of HL in young boys may be higher than in affluent populations.