Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a rare malignancy accounting for roughly 15% of all lymphomas and mostly affecting young patients. A second peak is seen in patients above 60 years of age. The history of HL treatment represents a remarkable success story in which HL has turned from an incurable disease to a neoplasm with an excellent prognosis. First-line treatment with stage-adapted treatment consisting of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy results in cure rates of approximately 80%. Second-line treatment mostly consists of intensive salvage chemotherapy followed by high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Novel approaches such as antibody drug conjugates and immunomodulatory drugs have shown impressive results in clinical trials in refractory and relapsed HL and are now increasingly implemented in earlier treatment lines. This review gives a comprehensive overview on HL addressing epidemiology, pathophysiology and current treatment options as well as recent developments and perspectives.
Keywords: classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL); diagnosis; immunomodulatory treatment; nodular lymphocyte-predominant HL (NLPHL); stage-adapted combined modality treatment; stem cell transplantation; targeted treatment approaches.