MILAN, Italy, June 12 (UPI) -- Regional differences in the survival of Hodgkin's disease can be partially explained by the type of the disease, according to a U.S. and European study.
Claudia Allemani, of the Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori in Milan, Italy, and the Eurocare Working Group compared 6,726 cases from 37 cancer registries in Europe and 3,442 cases from nine U.S. registries diagnosed between 1990 and 1994 and followed at least for five years.
The analysis, published in the July 15 issue of the journal Cancer, showed that the distribution of Hodgkin's Disease types in a region was a major factor in determining regional differences in Hodgkin's disease five-year survival and risk of death.
The study also confirmed a five-year survival rate of about 80 percent no matter where a patient lived, but there was a variation in Europe from 62 percent to 88 percent in different countries.
The study also supported data that Hodgkin's disease with lymphocyte predominance had the best prognosis and Hodgkin's disease with lymphocytic depletion had the worst.
