Prolongation of survival in Hodgkin's disease

We have selected patients under the age of 52 who received chemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease and died at this hospital during the periods 1950 to 1961 (group 1) and 1964 to 1970 (group 2). A comparison of the ages, sexes, histologic variants, and stages of the patients in the two groups suggests that the two populations are similar. We have observed that the median duration of survival from diagnosis increased considerably from 34 months (group 1) to 56 months (group 2); likewise, the median duration of survival after initiation of chemotherapy lengthened from 18 months in the earlier group to 42 months in the later group. Both groups of patients received alkylating agents and radiation therapy but only the later group received the benefit of vinblastine and, in most cases, procarbazine. We believe our observations reflect a true prolongation of survival in the more recent group of patients and we attribute this principally to more vigorous therapy, particularly the introduction of these two effective new chemotherapeutic agents.