AIDS and Hodgkin´s Disease

Abstract

Even though HD is not an AIDS defining disease, the relative risk (RR) for developing HD is definitively higher in at least some of the subgroups of patients with HIV infecction (HIVpos). Once it became evident that there was a clinical entity with overall features distinct from HD, one sought to establish HD-HIV epidemiological profile; to determine if there was a specific subgroup at higher risk for the development of this new entity or a subgroup in which it did not occur; to define the biological tumor profile; and the chance that these changes to influence the clinical features, the profile of therapeutic responses, and disease-free survival. As HIVpos patients present a more aggressive Hodgkin Disease and immunological changes that compromise the therapeutic response seen in the general population, the treatment strategy has shifted, in order to reach complete remission (CR) rates and longer survival time with the use of highly effective antiretroviral schemes, adjustments of old chemotherapy schemes, and new therapeutic protocols. This article presents and analyses the factors involved in HD-HIV pathogenesis and therapeutics.