Chemotherapy alone may be an efficient alternative in the treatment of early stage Hodgkin's disease if optimal radiotherapy is not available.

Because radiotherapy (RT) equipment technology in some developing countries is outdated, its side effects are more frequent and severe and its efficacy suboptimal, whereas chemotherapy (CT) meeting international standards is generally more consistent. With this in mind, we treated 29 patients with stages I and II Hodgkin's disease with the MOPP or the MOPP/ABV hybrid schedule without prior staging laparotomy. The complete remission rate was 96%: five patients relapsed and of these, two died and three were rescued with CT, in one case followed by an autologous stem cell autograft. The median follow-up is 54 months (range 9 to 126), the overall survival of the group 88% at 126 months, and the relapse-free survival 72% at 110 months. Conventional CT alone has been shown to be useful in achieving acceptable long-term results. This observation could be important in circumstances where RT is unavailable or of suboptimal quality.