Breast Cancer in Patients with Hodgkin's Lymphoma Predominantly Treated with Anthracycline – Based Chemotherapy with or without Radiotherapy: A Preliminary Analysis.
Authors: Vassilakopoulos T. , Pangalis G. , Angelopoulou M. , Pappas P. , Kokoris S. , Pazaiti A. , Konstantopoulos K. , Karles D. , Papalampros E. , Kontos M. 
Published: December 2010

BACKGROUND: Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) is a highly curable neoplasm with &gt;70-80% of the patients becoming long-term survivors. The success of treatment however, is associated with long term complications, namely breast cancer, especially if treated with extended-field radiotherapy (RT) at a curative dose as monotherapy. The oncogenic effect of limited field and relatively low-dose RT combined with anthracycline-based chemotherapy (CT) – the current standard of treatment for early stage disease - is not well investigated. The aim of the study is to describe the incidence of breast cancer in a series of patients treated predominantly with anthracycline-based CT with or without RT of limited field and dose.PATIENTS AND METHODS: Among 1125 patients in our database, 479 were females and were evaluated for the occurrence of breast cancer. Important baseline features were: Median age 28 years (14-81); clinical stage I, II, III, IV 17%, 55%, 15%, 13%; B-symptoms 37%; Nodular sclerosis 77%, mixed cellularity 15%, lymphocyte predominance 6%; Anthracycline based CT 86%, MOPP-based CT 12%, RT only without CT 2%; Radiotherapy 74%, mostly to the involved field, usually 2800-3000 cGy. The cumulative incidence of breast cancer was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method.RESULTS: The median follow-up of the 479 female patients was 88 months: 36% were followed-up for &gt;10 years. At the time of the analysis 6 cases of breast cancer were recorded for a 5-, 10- and 20-year cumulative incidence of 0.5%, 1.7% and 4.4%. The median age of the 6 patients was 43 years (26-54) at diagnosis of HL and 46.5 years (33-63) at breast cancer diagnosis. Clinical stages were I (n=1), II (n=3), III (n=1) and IV (n=1) and 4/6 patients had B-symptoms at diagnosis. All patients were in their 1st complete remission when breast cancer was diagnosed at a median time of 67 months from HL diagnosis (8-198). All 6 patients had received anthracycline-based CT and had been irradiated at a median dose of 2870 cGy, but the mediastinum or the axillae were included in the RT field only in 3/6 patients. Among 646 male patients, a single case of breast cancer was recorded in a 49 year old patient, 265 months after high-dose (4300 cGy) mantle field RT followed by MOPP/ABVDx6.DISCUSSION: In a series of female patients with HL, a median age of 28 years at diagnosis and a median follow-up of ∼7.5 years (&gt;10 years in 36% of them), who were predominantly treated with modern CT with or without limited field and dose RT, the 10- and 20-year incidence of breast cancer was 1.7% and 4.4%, with 6 cases recorded. Three of the cases developed clearly outside the irradiation field. We also recorded a single case of male breast cancer, which was very likely treatment related. Whether these cases are in excess of those expected for the population studied, as well as the features and outcome of breast cancer in HL survivors are currently being investigated.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(24 Suppl):Abstract nr 6069.