Randomised trial of two-drug and four-drug maintenance chemotherapy in advanced or recurrent Hodgkin's disease. Medical Research Council's working party on lymphomas.

Abstract

Between 1970 and 1975, 108 patients who presented with advanced or recurrent Hodgkin's disease and were free of disease after six courses of chemotherapy with mustine, vinblastine, procarbazine, and prednisone (MVPP) were allocated at random to one of two regiments of maintenance treatment: either intermittent treatment with vinblastine and procarbazine or intermittent treatment with MVPP. After a median follow-up period of nearly five years there was no significant difference between the two groups in either the rate of relapse or death rate. Six of the 55 patients given the two-drug regimen died compared with 10 of the 53 given the four-drug regimen. The four-drug required hospital attendance and was less agreeable than the two-drug regimen. The efficacy of maintenance chemotherapy with the two-drug regimen was no less than that with the four-drug regimen, but the two-drug regimen had several practical advantages.