Hodgkin's disease: Unsuspected minimal activity in patients that die from causes other than tumoral progression

Hodgkin's disease (HD) is a curable disease. However, there are still many questions that remain unanswered in this illness, such as the appearance of unsuspected microscopic active illness a long time after the conclusion of treatment, We do not know of any recent publications that have microscopic ally studied the presence of unsuspected HD activity in patients who died f rom causes other than tumoral progression. This aspect was analysed in our series of patients with HD. We studied 486 patients with a median follow-up of 8 years. Autopsy was performed in 40 of 144 non-surviving patients. Act ive HD was found in 60% (24/40) of the patients at autopsy. Of these, 10 pa tients (25%, 10/40) with active HD died from causes other than tumoral prog ression. Six patients had minimal clinically unsuspected isolated tumor foc i. In spite of technical advances and the introduction of modem and more ag gressive chemotherapy, the discovery of minimal unsuspected residual HD con tinues in an considerable percentage of patients who die from causes other than tumoral progression.