Survival by Race and Ethnicity in Pediatric and Adolescent Patients With Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Children’s Oncology Group Study

Kahn JM, Kelly KM, Pei Q, Bush R, Friedman DL, Keller FG, Bhatia S, Henderson TO, Schwartz CL, Castellino SM. Survival by Race and Ethnicity in Pediatric and Adolescent Patients With Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Children’s Oncology Group Study. J Clin Oncol. 2019 Nov 10;37(32):3009-3017. doi: 10.1200/JCO.19.00812. Epub 2019 Sep 20. PMID: 31539308; PMCID: PMC6839907.

Population-based studies of children and adolescents with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) report a survival disadvantage in nonwhite—non-Hispanic black (NHB) and Hispanic—patients. Whether disparities persist after adjustment for clinical and treatment-related variables is unknown. We examined survival by race/ethnicity in children receiving risk-based, response-adapted, combined-modality therapy for HL in contemporary Children’s Oncology Group trials. This pooled analysis used individual-level data from 1,605 patients (younger than age 1 to 21 years) enrolled in phase III trials for low-risk (AHOD0431), intermediate-risk (AHOD0031), and high-risk (AHOD0831) HL from 2002 to 2012. Event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared between non-Hispanic white (NHW) and nonwhite patients. Cox proportional hazards for survival were estimated for both de novo and relapsed HL, adjusting for demographics, disease characteristics, and therapy.