Treatment Responses, Toxicity, and Survival in Patients with Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma Aged ≥50 Years: A Single-Center Experience Over Two Decades

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to evaluate treatment responses, toxicity, and survival among cHL patients aged ≥50 years. METHODS: We retrospectively identified all newly diagnosed cHL patients and only included cases who were ≥50 years old at the time of diagnosis and with data available between 1999 and 2020. RESULTS: There were 101 patients, of which 52 were between 50 and 59 years of age, and 49 patients were ≥60 years old. Sixty-two patients were male, and the most common histopathological subtype was mixed cellularity cHL (58.4%). ECOG PS, CCI, CIRS, and ACE-27 scores were significantly higher in patients aged ≥60 years than those of 50–59 age group. While all patients aged 50–59 years received ABVD as first-line therapy, 79% (n=39) of cases aged ≥60 years had ABVD. In patients receiving ABVD, 95% and 92.7% of the cases aged 50–59 and ≥60 years had CR, respectively (p=0.999). Age groups were comparable in terms of hematological and non-hematological toxicities (p=0.369, p=0.127, respectively). Although not statistically significant, median survival was longer in patients receiving a transplant than in those without transplantation (108 months vs 52 months, p=0.069). In multivariate analysis, the risk of progression was higher in patients with lymphocyte ≤600/mm(3) and in those who were unresponsive to first-line therapy (p=0.002 and p<0.001, respectively). Patients with B symptoms, age ≥60 years, and CIRS >3 had higher risk of mortality (p=0.001, p=0.012, p=0.038, respectively). By using these 3 parameters, we defined a new risk score, which divided our patient cohort into two as low- and high-risk groups. Low-risk patients had significantly higher survival rates than the high-risk group (83.9% vs 40.5%, p<0.001). DISCUSSION: This new prognostic score should be further tested and validated in other patient populations. Although our study has some limitations including the limited number of patients and its retrospective nature, there are not so many studies in elderly cHL patients and elderly and/or frail patients are generally excluded in most of the clinical trials. Thus, this real-life single-center experience would contribute to the literature.