Differences in clinical presentation suggest the interaction of race-specific and sex-specific susceptibility factors for nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma (NLPHL), according to a study of 602 black patients and 1,950 white patients with NLPHL. Researchers’ findings included:

•On average, black patients were:

• younger than white patients, 42 vs 45 years
• more often female, 49% vs 29%

•Black patients were more likely to have:

• axillary lymph nodes as the primary disease site
• unfavorable socioeconomic characteristics
• a higher no-treatment rate in patients with early-stage disease
• longer time to therapy initiation

•Despite these differences, there were no significant differences between races with regard to stage distribution or survival.

•Overall survival was 90.1% in patients with early-stage disease and 79.4% in advanced-stage disease.

Citation: Olszewski AJ, Shrestha R, Cook NM. Race-specific features and outcomes of nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma: Analysis of the National Cancer Data Base. [Published online ahead of print July 6, 2015]. Cancer. doi: 10.1002/cncr.29527.