Diagnosis and Treatment of Hodgkin's Disease

Hodgkin's disease is a type of lymphoma, a malignancy of the lymphatic system.

This disease is rare, and causes some cells in the lymphatic system to abnormally reproduce, eventually producing tumors.  The lymphatic tissue consists of the lymph nodes throughout the body, the spleen and the bone marrow.  Hodgkin’s disease usually shows itself initially in lymph nodes in the neck and chest.

Hodgkin's disease is actually a group of similar diseases that doctors often classify into several major types.  Lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin’s disease is a rare type (less than 5 percent) which behaves somewhat differently.

Hodgkin’s Disease Treatment at Stanford

Innovation
Faculty at Stanford University have made major contributions leading to the cure of Hodgkin's disease. The late Dr. Henry S. Kaplan co-designed the first linear accelerator to be used in the Western Hemisphere for treating cancer.  He and Dr. Saul Rosenberg conducted clinical trials over several decades, which led to an ever-increasing cure rate for this disease.

More recently, our clinical researchers have turned their focus to diminishing long-term toxicity among patients with this disease, while further improving the cure rate in clinical trials of the disease.

A Multidisciplinary, Personalized Approach
Physicians from the Division of Oncology and the Department of Radiation Oncology, along with radiologists and pathologists, meet weekly in the Lymphoma New Patient Conference to review newly diagnosed, complex patients.

Individual patients are followed by faculty in Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, and the Bone Marrow Transplant team.

Advanced Treatments
Among the specialized treatments available to patients are: 

• A unique and highly curative chemotherapy/radiotherapy program for patients with Hodgkin's disease  referred to as Stanford V (five)
  
  
• Customized biologic therapies including monoclonal antibodies and vaccines are being developed
  
  
• Radioimmunotherapy, a specialized treatment in which radioactive sources are targeted to and carried directly to specific cancer cells.

Some patients with lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease are candidates for blood and marrow transplantation (BMT); the single largest group of patients being treated are those with lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease, using allogeneic or autologous marrow grafting.

Among our innovations is the non-myeloablative allogeneic transplant, an outpatient procedure with limited side affects and minimal need for hospitalization. Stanford researchers are also investigating the efficacy of vaccine therapy following BMT.