Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a patho¬logically and clinically heterogeneous hematologic malignancy. In the United States, an estimated 185,000 people are currently living with this disease, and it accounted for more than 9,000 new cases of cancer in 2015. Chemotherapy and radiation provide long-term benefit to the majority of patients with HL; however, some patients will eventually relapse. 
High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) is the standard of care for relapsed disease, resulting in complete remission rates of approximately 50%. However, patients who relapse after ASCT generally have poor outcomes, with 5-year overall survival rates as low as 12% in patients with multiple poor prognostic factors. In an attempt to prolong the benefit of ASCT in relapsed/refractory HL, chemotherapy and targeted therapy regimens have been tested as consolidation therapy. However, finding an appropriate bal¬ance between efficacy and tolerability has remained challenging. Since ther¬apy options in the relapsed/refractory setting are limited, the discovery of new, well-tolerated agents that may improve the benefit of ASCT has been a high priority. 
One of the most recent therapies to be approved for the management of HL was brentuximab vedotin. This antibody-drug conjugate combines an anti-CD30 monoclonal antibody with a cytotoxic chemotherapy to deliver a tar¬geted, cytotoxic payload to tumor cells. In its pivotal study for HL treatment, brentuximab vedotin demonstrated high response rates and favorable overall sur¬vival in patients who had failed prior chemotherapy and ASCT. More recently, researchers have explored brentuximab vedotin as consolidation therapy post- ASCT. The results of this study showed that brentuximab vedotin improves pro¬gression-free survival in patients with risk factors for progression with manage¬able toxicity. 
Researchers also have placed a high priority on discovering factors that can help predict the risk of relapse following ASCT. Such a risk assessment would help identify patients for whom consolidation therapy should be considered. Fluoro¬deoxyglucose-positron emitting tomog¬raphy (FDG-PET) has been established as an important prognostic tool for early HL. More recently, however, it has been studied as a tool for assessing the risk of ASCT failure. Specifically, patients with residual HL detectable by FDG-PET after high-dose chemotherapy are at greater risk for progression following ASCT.

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