ASHAP: A regimen for cytoreduction of refractory or recurrent Hodgkin's disease

Patients with Hodgkin's disease, which is either refractory or recurs after frontline chemotherapy with MOPP (mechlorethamine, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone), ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine), or both regimens, generally have a poor prognosis. High-dose chemotherapy with autologous marrow or stem cell rescue (ABMT) is now a widely used salvage strategy in these patients. In this study, our objective was to determine the response rate to ASHAP (Adriamycin = doxorubicin, Solumedrol = methylprednisolone, High-dose Ara-C = cytosine arabinoside, and Platinum = cisplatinum), in a group of patients with Hodgkin's disease with such poor risk characteristics. The treatment was intended as a brief tumor reducing program before ABMT. Fifty-six patients with diagnosed relapsed or primary refractory Hodgkin's disease underwent this treatment. The program consisted of the administration of two cycles of ASHAP chemotherapy (doxorubicin 10 mg/m²/d intravenous (IV) continuous infusion (CI) over 24 hours, days 1 to 4; methylprednisolone 500 mg/d IV over 15 minutes daily for 5 days; cisplatinum 25 mg/m²/d IV CI over 24 hours, days I to 4; cytosine arabinoside 1.5 g/m²/d IV over 2 hours on day 5). After two courses of ASHAP the patients were evaluated for response, including a gallium scan test. Patients with progressive disease were taken off the study. Those with responding or stable disease received a third course of ASHAP, followed by consolidative treatment with ABMT. There were 19 complete responses (34% CR), 20 partial responses (36% PR), and 17 treatment failures, including 8 with minor responses and 9 with disease progression. Thus, in total there were 39 responses out of 56 patients (CR + PR = 70%). Myelosuppression was the main toxicity. There were no deaths due to toxicity. At this time, 23 patients are alive. There were 31 deaths due to disease progression and 2 due to other causes. The initial response to ASHAP before subsequent ABMT consolidation treatment correlated with survival. All 17 patients in whom ASHAP failed to achieve a response have died. The presence of B symptoms at relapse, and a duration of response to the last regimen of ≤6 months, predicted a poor response to ASHAP. A short program of treatment with ASHAP is an effective tumor debulking approach in patients previously treated with both or either ABVD and MOPP, before ABMT.