Clinical-pathological features and histological variants of Hodgkin's lymphoma: a study of 526 patients

Context Hodgkin's lymphoma is an uncommon disorder with heterogeneous clinical, histological, and epidemiological characteristics. Aims The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological and histopathological characteristics in patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma in Western Algeria. Materials and methods Our retrospective descriptive study was conducted at the Departments of Haematology in Western Algerian hospitals over 11 years (2001–2011). Statistical analysis used SPSS 18.0 was used. Results A total of 526 patients were identified in our study. There were 273 male and 253 female patients, with a male to female ratio of 1.07. The mean age of the patients was 33.33 years (range = 14–89 years), and most of the patients were young adults [20–29 years (38.2%)]. Nodular sclerosis was the most frequent histological type (51%), followed by mixed cellularity (26%); nodular sclerosis was more common among female patients, whereas mixed cellularity was more common among male patients compared with female patients. Staging classification of the disease indicated high frequency of early stage II, with 184 cases (35%). Conclusion Most of the patients were young adults with nodal lymphoma at an early stage of disease and a dominance of nodular sclerosis as the histological type. Further studies are required to determine the factors that play a major role in the etiology of this disease.