Review Articles
Vol. 18 No. 1 (2026): Mediterranean Journal of Hematology and Infectious Diseases
CLASSICAL HODGKIN LYMPHOMA TODAY
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All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Published: June 30, 2026
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Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma is one of the most curable neoplasms worldwide, particularly among young adults. Significant advances have been made to maximize treatment efficacy and minimize acute and long-term toxicities, including infertility, cardiovascular complications and secondary primary malignancies. Pretreatment prognostic stratification and interim PET response are the cornerstone of personalizied treatment strategies. Circulating tumor cell-free DNA represents an investigational tool for genotyping cHL at diagnosis and monitoring treatment response. An abbreviated course of polychemotherapy followed by involved site/involved nodal radiotherapy continues to be the gold standard in early-stage diseases, while polychemotherapy remains the mainstay for the treatment of advanced-stage disease with or without the incorporation of novel agents, such as the anti-CD30 antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab-vedotin (BV) or the anti-PD1 checkpoint-inhibitors (CPI) nivolumab and pembrolizumab. In elderly patients, treatment requires careful adaptation to minimize acute toxicities, often reducing the chemotherapy load or incorporating new targeted therapies. Although consolidation with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) after salvage chemotherapy still represents the standard approach in patients with chemosensitive relapsed/refractory cHL, significant improvement in response rate and duration have been achieved when BV and CPI are integrated into salvage regimens prior to ASCT or as post-transplant maintenance. Both classes of drugs are also approved as monotherapy in patients who are transplant-ineligible or have refractory/relapsed disease. Novel therapeutic approaches, including anti-CD30 CAR-T cells and the combination of the anti-CD30/CD16A bispecific antibody AFM13 with preactivated allogeneic cord blood derived NK cells, are under investigation for patients who failed currently approved treatment option.
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How to Cite
“CLASSICAL HODGKIN LYMPHOMA TODAY” (2026) Mediterranean Journal of Hematology and Infectious Diseases, 18(1). doi:10.4084/MJHID.2026.055.
Copyright (c) 2026 Francesco D'Alò, Gabriele Schiaffini, Daniele Mazzoni, Eleonora Alma, Flaminia Bellisario, Marcello Viscovo, Elena Maiolo, Silvia Bellesi, Stefan Hohaus
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
