Summary: The proposal of prof. Bennett for new histopathologic grading of Hodgkin's disease was opened for discussion and for the study of its reproducibility. This proposal has arised from the original Rye's classification of Hodgkin's disease and maintained its basic principles. The perfect and diagnosis the differential diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease, as well as an exact subtypisation analysis of the NS type into a subtype NS 1 (with a low grade malignancy) and NS 2 (with a high grade malignancy) are essential for the grading. This analysis allows the distinction of three grades of Hodgkin's disease malignancy — G 1, G 2 and G 3. The G 1 grade consists of LP type and subtype NS 1 (G 1 = LP + NS 1), the G 2 of subtype NS 2 and type MC (G 2 = NS 2 + MC), and the grade G 3 is identical with the LD type of Hodgkin's disease.
The reliability of such approach was tested in a group of 86 cases for a correlation with survival of the patients. The cases were classified as follows: 29 cases (34 %) of G 1, 46 cases (53 %) of G 2, and 11 cases (13 %) of G 3. The differences of patients survival for G 1, resp. G 2, resp. G 3 are statistically significant (P < 0,01). Our results confirm the preliminary conclusions of prof. Bennett and the clinical relevance of the histopathologic grading of Hodgkin's disease.
Histopathological grading of Hodgkin's disease
