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Gratifyingly high cure and survival rates are achieved in patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), thanks to treatment with ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) or BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone).
To compare these two approaches, investigators randomized 331 patients (age range, 17–60) with newly diagnosed stage IIB, III, or IV HL to receive 6 cycles of ABVD or 4 cycles of BEACOPP (escalated regimen) plus 4 cycles of BEACOPP (baseline regimen). After chemotherapy, patients received radiotherapy to sites of initial bulky disease or residual active sites. Patients who failed to achieve remission or relapsed received a second-line regimen followed…