An evaluation of intraabdominal involvement in Hodgkin disease

Abstract

An analysis of the staging procedure in 80 patients with histologically confirmed Hodgkin disease was performed at Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay. There was a marked male preponderance. The mixed cellularity type of Hodgkin disease is the commonest histological variety (47.5%) and has the highest incidence of subsequently proven generalized disease (76%). The lymphocytic predominant variety was the next most common (27.5%) and was present as unsuspected disease in 45% of cases. Systemic symptoms were associated with advanced disease in 57% of clinical IB and 73% of clinical IIB cases. Splenic involvement was histologically confirmed in 41% of cases with stage I disease and 52% of cases with stage II disease and was associated with liver involvement in two cases. A lymphogram was performed, in addition, prior to the laparotomy in 40 cases and the lymphogram-laparotomy concordance was approximately 72% in our series. This stresses the importance of a staging laparotomy.