High Prevalence of Bone Marrow Involvement and Advanced Disease in Saudi Patients Diagnosed With Hodgkin Lymphoma

Objectives To estimate the current prevalence of bone marrow involvement in classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients diagnosed at King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients, diagnosed between 2015 and 2021 at KKUH. We retrospectively collected clinical and pathological information from all adult patients aged 18 years or older with a diagnosis of HL. Survival analyses were performed using the log-rank test and Kaplan-Meier curves. Results The study included 140 patients, 60 (42.86%) of whom were female. Bone marrow involvement was seen in 15 (10.71%) patients, 58 (41.43%) patients had an advanced-stage disease, and 20 (14.29%) patients had gastrointestinal involvement. Patients with bone marrow involvement had a median survival of 71 months (95% confidence interval (CI): 16.7-125.3) compared to patients without bone marrow involvement who had a median survival of 68 months (95% CI: 50.7-85.3). Conclusion The prevalence of bone marrow involvement in HL patients, as well as the proportion of patients presenting with advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, was higher compared to Western data. This could be attributed to a delay in diagnosis or more aggressive disease biology.