Background: In spite of not being considered as an AIDS defining illness, Hodgkin's disease (HD) has specific clinical and biological features in HIV-infected patients.
Patients and methods: Study of clinicopathologic and analytic characteristics, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) detection (polymerase chain reaction), and prognosis in 15 patients with HD and HIV infection.
Results: Thirteen patients had B symptoms, 10 extranodal involvement and 12 advanced HD. The most frequent histologic subtypes were mixed cellularity (6) and lymphocyte depletion (6). The mean (SD) of CD4 lymphocytes was 0.10 (0.08) x 10(9)/l. The presence of EBV in lymph node biopsy was demonstrated in 3 out of 4 patients investigated. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in 7 out of 14 treated cases (50%), the median overall survival was 26 months and the 2 year event-free survival probability was 60%.
Conclusions: In HIV-infected patients, HD presents in advanced stages, unfavourable histologic subtypes, frequent extranodal involvement and B symptoms. The prognosis is poor, mainly because of a low CR rate.