Eight drug combination chemotherapy (MOPP and ABDV) and local radiotherapy for advanced Hodgkin's disease

Thirty seven patients with advanced Hodgkin's disease have been treated for ≥3 mth with a protocol consisting of alternate monthly courses of MOPP (mechlorethamine, Oncovin [vincristine], procarbazine, and prednisone) and ABDV (adriamycin, bleomycin, DTIC, and vinblastine) with local radiotherapy (RT) to areas of originally bulky disease. This therapy produced CR in 19 of 19 previously untreated patients (100%), eight of nine previously treated with RT (89%), and six of nine previously treated with RT and MOPP (67%). The remaining patients are all PRs tending toward CR status. The median time to CR was 3.0 mth. The median time in remission to date for the previously untreated patients is 8+ months (2+ - 14+). After an induction period of eight cycles of chemotherapy patients are maintained on alternate month treatment continuing the alternating sequence. During this phase three patients have experienced reappearance of disease (one recurrence, one possible second primary lymphoma, and one recurrence in a patient whose original diagnosis is in doubt). The regimen has been well tolerated. All patients were treated as outpatients. Alopecia and neurotoxicity were mild and myelosuppression was moderate. Clinically significant cardiopulmonary toxicity has been limited to mild radiation pneumonitis in one patient and bleomycin pneumonitis which cleared during prednisone in a second patient.