Salvage radiotherapy in patients with relapsed and refractory Hodgkin's lymphoma: a retrospective analysis from the German Hodgkin Lymphoma Study Group.

Purpose: To evaluate treatment outcome and prognostic factors in patients with refractory or first relapsed Hodgkin's disease (HD) treated with salvage radiotherapy (SRT) alone.

Patients And Methods: From 4,754 patients registered in the database of the German Hodgkin Study Group from 1988 to 1999, 624 patients were identified with progressive disease (n = 202), or with early (n = 170) or late (n = 252) relapsed HD. At first treatment failure, SRT alone was given to 100 patients.