Background. Deterioration of quality of life (QoL) and late complications of antitumor therapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) are the important medical issues, since they mostly relate to young patients with a high life-expectancy. Objective. The study was to compare QoL of HL survivors versus healthy young adults. Methods. 56 (22 males and 34 females) HL survivors with a median age of 27.5 (range 22-41) were evaluated. For the purpose of comparison, 94 (44 males and 50 females) healthy subjects with a median age of 28.0 (range 22-46) were enrolled into the study of QoL. All HL survivors were treated in our hospital according to the modified pediatric protocol DAL-HD-90 in 1997-2007. QoL was assessed using the Short Form 36 (SF-36) which enabled generating 8 separate scales and 2 final scores (0 = worst possible health, 100 = best possible health). All survivors were in complete remission of HL for ≥ 5 years. Results. The HL survivors had the lower scores than the normal controls according to all scales and SF-36. Statistically significant differences were found in: general health 53.4 (95 %CI 47.8-59.1) vs. 72.3 (68.8-75.8; p < 0.001), vitality 54.7 (50.4-59.1) vs. 72.2 (69.3-75.2; p < 0.001), and mental health 57.4 (53.5-61.4) vs. 71.7 (68.6-74.8; p < 0.001). The patients at the age ≥ 18.5 years (ROC-curves; p = 0.047) at the time of HL diagnosis had poorer QoL when compared to younger patients with respect to: general health 48.3 (41.3-55.2) vs. 60.9 (51.6-70.2; p = 0.027): vitality 50.3 (44.7-55.9) vs. 61.1 (51.6-70.2; p = 0.013). The patients with the unfavorable events including relapse (n = 6) and second malignancy (n = 2) showed the lowest scores of QoL, especially in physical role performance [34.4 (2.6-71.3) vs. 79.7 (77.8-89.6; p = 0.002)] and emotional role performance [25.0 (7.5-57.5) vs. 77.8 (67.1-88.4; p < 0.001)]. Duration of remission, age at the QoL evaluation, gender, therapy intensity (2, 4, or 6 cycles of primary chemotherapy plus radiotherapy), Ann-Arbor stages, bulky disease, current married status, and education levels showed no significant influence on the QoL parameters. Conclusion. Long-term HL survivors had poorer physical and mental QoL than the general population of young adults. The age at the time of LH diagnosis ≥ 18.5 years was associated with significantly reduced QoL. The relapsed HL and second malignancies were mostly associated with the deterioration of physical and emotional role functioning that may indicate uncertainty of patients about future well-being.

In the contrast to Ph'-negative chronic myeloproliferative disorders (cMPD), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is prone to rather early transformation into the later stage disease, known as the acceleration phase (AP) and blast crisis (BC). Myeloproliferative disorders are termed myeloproliferative neoplasms in the WHO classification, 2008. Molecular mechanisms underlying CML progression are unclear and still being studied. Recently, it was shown that progression of some malignancies was associated with activation and hyperexpression of some genes from the cancer-testis (CT) family. In this study, we evaluated the gene expression profile of CT genes (GAGE1, NY-ESO-1, MAGEA1, SCP1, SEMG1, SPANXA1, SSX1 and PRAME) in the blood of patients with initially diagnosed cMPD, as well as in the blood and bone marrow of CML patients in CP, AP and BC. It was found that activation of these eight CT genes expression was strongly correlated with CML progression to AP and BP. These data suggest that at least some of CT genes can be involved in CML evolution towards the terminal phases. Expression of these genes can be used as an early molecular predictor of CML progression to AP and BC.

This article presents the analysis of long-term results of therapy of adolescents (n = 48; median age 16.6 years; minimum and maximum age -15.0 and 18.1) and young adults (n = 49; median age 21.0 years; minimum and maximum age 18.5 and 33.6) with primary Hodgkin''s lymphoma (HL). During 1997-2008 all the patients were treated according to the pediatric protocol DAL-HD-90. Twelve-year event-free survival was 73.4 ± 4.8% and overall survival 81.5 ± 4.7% for all patients. Twelve-year event-free survival for adolescents at the early stages of HL was documented at the level of 83.3 ± 15.2%, at the intermediate stages 80.9 ± 10.0% and at the advanced stages 72.2 ± 9.8%. Long-term treatment results of young adults with intermediate and advanced stages of HL were inferior to those of adolescents. The frequency of secondary tumors in all patients was in 2.1% of cases.