Do We Need an Early Unfavorable (Intermediate) Stage of Hodgkin's Lymphoma?

The outcome of patients who have early unfavorable or intermediate-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma has greatly improved. The increasing efficacy of chemotherapy and late toxic effects of wide-field radiotherapy justify the careful testing of the new involved-node radiotherapy principle in the combined-modality approach. For the purpose of tailoring treatment to the individual patient we need more accurate measures, preferably predictive factors that may tell us how the individual patient should be treated. The result of an early positron emission tomography scan with fluorodeoxyglucose may well become the major new treatment-related guidance for an individually tailored treatment approach.