Background: The main form of cytotoxic treatment for advanced Hodgkin’s disease (HD) is conventional dose multiagents chemotherapy. As HD is not common in Japan, we conducted a phase II study of the commonly used combination chemotherapy (CCT) regimen established in the West for Japanese patients with advanced HD to confirm the efficacy and safety. Method: Between October 1989 and February 1993, a multicenter phase II study of alternating CCT C-MOPP (cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone) and ABVd (adriamycin, vinblastine, bleomycin, dacarbazine) to evaluate its clinical usefulness for clinical stage (cS) II–IV HD was conducted by the Lymphoma Study Group of the Japan Clinical Oncology Group. Results: Seventy-nine previously untreated patients were enrolled in the study. For 67 eligible patients, the response rate was 92.5% with 83.6% complete response (CR). For 40 cS II and 27 cS III/IV patients the response rate was 95.0% with 90.0% CR and 88.9% with 74.1% CR, respectively. The overall 5-year survival rate was 84.8%. Those of cS II and cS III/IV were 92.5 and 73.1%, respectively. There was no significant difference between cS II and cS III/IV (p = 0.1025). The progression-free 4-year survival rate was 72.8%. Those of cS II and cS III/IV were 77.5 and 65.7%, respectively. There was no significant difference between cS II and cS III/IV (p = 0.2483). Grade 4 toxicity by the criteria of the World Health Organization consisted of leukocytopenia in 28.4% of patients. There was GPT elevation in 4.5%, nausea/vomiting in 11.9% and CNS in 1.5% of patients, but there was no treatment-related death. Conclusion: The C-MOPP/ABVd regimen for Japanese patients with advanced HD is considered to be one of the effective CCTs according to the results of the present phase II study.
