Hodgkin's Disease - Other Treatments

Transplantation

Patients with relapsed or progressive HD are often treated with high-dose chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplantation procedures. (Transplantation does not appear to offer an advantage compared to standard chemotherapy as initial treatment for patients with high-risk advanced HD.)

This treatment involves removal and replacement of stem cells, which are produced in the bone marrow. This allows the patient to receive high-dose chemotherapy without destroying these important cells. Stem cells are the early forms for all blood cells in the body (including red, white, and immune cells). Cancer treatments harm growing cells as well as cancer cells, and so the healthy stem cells must be replaced by transplanting them.

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For Hodgkin’s disease, the most common type of transplant is an autologous procedure, using the patient’s own cells. An allogeneic transplant, using cells from a donor, is more risky for patients with Hodgkin’s disease and is generally used only when an autologous transplant has failed. (This section provides information pertinent to autologous procedures. Detailed information on allogeneic transplants, including such complications as graft-versus-host-disease, can be found in In-Depth Report #84: Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.)

Transplantation Procedure

Stem cells must first be collected in one of the following ways:

• Directly from blood (peripheral blood stem cell transplantation)
• From bone marrow (bone marrow transplantation)

Click the icon to see an illustrated series detailing bone marrow transplant surgery.

Stem cells are collected several weeks before the procedure. They are frozen and stored while the patient undergoes high-dose chemotherapy. Some patients receive high-dose whole body radiation therapy along with chemotherapy.

After the patient completes the pre-transplant therapy, the frozen cells are thawed and then infused into the patient. Within a few weeks, these cells start to generate new white blood cells and then new red blood cells.

Infection

The risk for infection is greatest during the first 6 weeks following the transplant. During this period, a patient usually remains in isolation and receives antibiotics and intravenous nutrition. It takes 6 - 12 months post-transplant for a patient’s immune system to fully recover.

Many patients develop severe herpes zoster virus infections (shingles) or have a recurrence of herpes simplex virus infections (cold sores and genital herpes). Pneumonia, cytomegalovirus, aspergillus (a type of fungus), and Pneumocystis jirovecii (a fungus) are among the most serious life-threatening infections.