Management of early-stage Hodgkin's disease: a continuing evolution.

The management of early-stage Hodgkin's disease (HD) has evolved during the past 25 years from exacting discovery of sites of disease using both clinical and surgical staging to treat with a specific radiation therapy field to determining disease parameters and treating with systemic chemotherapy. This evolution has occurred because of the increasing awareness of both early and late complications of radiation therapy, as well as because of data showing comparable results with combination chemotherapy without comparable morbidity. The final answer rests with ongoing, controlled clinical trials to determine whether chemotherapy alone will be the treatment of choice for early-stage HD.