Assessment of male fertility in patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma treated in the German Hodgkin Study Group (GHSG) clinical trials.

BACKGROUND Infertility is one of the most significant side-effects in long-term survivors of successfully treated Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL). PATIENTS AND METHODS The fertility status was assessed in male HL patients enrolled into trials of the German Hodgkin Study Group from 1988 to 2003. RESULTS In pre-treatment analysis (n = 202), 20% of patients had normozoospermia, 11% azoospermia and 69% had other dyspermia. In post-treatment analysis (n = 112), 64% of patients had azoospermia, 30% other dyspermia and 6% normozoospermia (P < 0.001). Azoospermia was observed in 90% of patients treated with chemotherapy alone, 67% of those treated with combined modality and 11% of those treated with radiotherapy alone (P < 0.001). Azoospermia was more frequent after 4x cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone, doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine (COPP/ABVD) (91%), 8x bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone (BEACOPP) baseline (93%) and 8x BEACOPP escalated (87%) compared with 2x COPP/ABVD (56%; P = 0.003). There was a statistically significant difference in post-treatment follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels between patients with azoospermia and those with preserved spermatogenesis (P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Depending on the treatment received, male HL patients are at high risk of infertility after treatment. FSH might be used as surrogate parameter for male fertility in future studies.