BACKGROUND: Nodular sclerosis (NS), a frequent histological subtype of Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL), presents great variability in its cellular composition. In the 80's, researchers of the British National Lymphoma Investigation (BNLI) proposed a histological-based subclassification for NS HL. They identified two histological grades - NS HL grade I (NS HL I) and NS HL grade II (NS HL II) - and reported that NS II patients had a lower survival rate in comparison with NS I patients. Others studies, however, did not reproduce these findings. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the prognostic significance of the BNLI grading system. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We retrospectively studied 69 NS HL patients. More than 90% of the included cases were treated with combined modality therapy or exclusive chemotherapy, the treatment type was not different for NS I and NS II patients. RESULTS: Thirty-five cases (51%) were classified as NS I and 34 (49%) as NS II. We did not observe significant differences in the distribution of other prognostic factors between the two NS grades. The complete remission rate after initial therapy was 85.7% in the NS I group and 82.4% in the NS II group (p = 0.75). The predicted 5-year overall survival rate was 67% in the NS I patients and 83.5% in the NS II patients (p = 0.13). The predicted 5-year disease free survival rate for NSI and NSII patients was 85.2% and 87%, respectively (p = 0.72). CONCLUSION: The histological BNLI grading system was not associated with the prognosis of this uniformly treated NS LH population.
Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Prognosis; Survival analysis
