Commenting on the UK NCRI RAPID trial data presented at the ASH Annual Meeting, Martin Dreyling, MD, Professor of Medicine and Head of the Lymphoma Program at the University Hospital Grosshaden, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, stated, “This is a straightforward study suggesting that PET-negative patients with complete response to chemotherapy do not need to be treated with radiotherapy. A larger meta-analysis¹ confirms the results of the RAPID trial. The meta-analysis of three trials with a total of 655 patients found that radiotherapy was improving outcome especially in patients with early-stage disease with only an interim partial response to chemotherapy. The authors concluded that their data supported the concept that in early responders one might consider skipping the radiation consolidation.” ■

Disclosure: Dr. Dreyling reported no potential conflicts of interest.

Reference

1. Hay A, Klimm B, Chen BE, et al: Treatment of stage I-IIA non-bulky Hodgkin’s lymphoma: An individual patient-data comparison of German Hodgkin Study Group (GHSD) HD10 and HD11 combined-modality therapy (CMT) and NCIC clinical trials group (NCIC CTG) HD6 ABVD alone. 2012 Annual Meeting of ASH. Abstract 548. Presented December 10, 2012.