Treatment patterns and clinical outcomes in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma receiving stem cell transplantation outside Europe and North America: results from the B-HOLISTIC study

Abstract

Information on Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is mostly limited to Europe and North America. Thisreal-world, retrospective study assessed treatment pathways and clinical outcomes in adults withstage IIB–IV classical HL receiving frontline treatment (n¼1598) or relapsed/refractory HL (RRHL,n¼426) in regions outside Europe and North America between January 2010 and December2013. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS) in the RRHL group. Amongpatients with RRHL, 89.0% received salvage chemotherapy; most common regimen was etopo-side, methylprednisolone, cytarabine, cisplatin (ESHAP; 26.3%). Median PFS in the RRHL groupwas 13.2months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.9–20.2) and was longer in patients withvs.with-out stem cell transplantation (SCT; 20.6vs.7.5 months;p¼0.0071). This large-scale study identi-fied a lower PFS for RRHL in the rest of the world compared with Europe and North America,highlighting the need for novel targeted therapies and SCT earlier in the treatment continuum.