Childhood Hodgkin's disease in Campinas, Brazil.

Purpose: Little clinical information about Hodgkin's disease in children is available from poor countries. The object of this study is to evaluate our data in Campinas, Brazil and hope "to make one dot on the geographic map of this disease more clear."
Patients and Methods: Between 1978 and 1988, 46 patients under the age of 17 years with biopsy-proven Hodgkin's Disease (HD) were referred for evaluation at Centro Boldrini in Campinas, São Paulo state, in Brazil. Thirty-seven of them were treated and followed-up only at this Center and are the subjects of this analysis. All the original histological slides were obtained, reviewed, and classified according to the Rye system. Staging procedures included exploratory laparotomy in 33 of 37 children, but none had lymphangiography. Treatment was individualized until January 1986 when the German protocol was adopted.
Results: Nineteen cases were classified as nodular sclerosis, 14 as mixed cellularity, and three as lymphocyte depleted. Mean age was 7 years; male/female ratio was 2:1. Fifty percent were advanced stages III and IV and 46% (17/37) had at least one of the systemic B symptoms. Mean follow-up was 81 months (range from 41 to 174 months). Five-year actuarial overall survival was 78%. Two children (5%) had acute myeloid leukemia at 25 and 49 months after diagnosis.
Conclusions: Although distribution of histological subtypes of our cases is similar to other reports in developed countries, as well as percentage of advanced stages III/IV, our patients fared worse when compared to those reports. The reason for this continues to remain unclear but it does not seem to be related to histology subtypes.