What are the recommended follow-up protocols for patients treated for Hodgkin Lymphoma in primary care?

Recommended follow-up protocols for patients treated for Hodgkin lymphoma in primary care include:

• Ensuring patients have a named key worker during treatment and contact details for the specialist team after treatment completion to facilitate communication and support.
• Providing end-of-treatment summaries to patients and their GPs, highlighting personal and general risk factors, including late effects related to Hodgkin lymphoma and its treatment.
• Educating patients on how to recognise possible relapse symptoms and late effects of treatment, and advising them to seek urgent appointments if new or recurrent symptoms suggest relapse.
• Offering regular clinical assessments after treatment, with consideration to stop routine clinical assessments aimed at detecting relapse after 3 years of ongoing complete remission.
• Not routinely offering surveillance imaging (such as chest X-ray, CT, or PET-CT) or LDH blood tests for relapse detection in asymptomatic patients.
• At 3 years post-treatment, considering transferring surveillance of late effects to nurse-led or GP-led services to support long-term survivorship care.
• Discussing lifestyle and exercise from diagnosis onwards to support overall health and recovery.

These follow-up protocols emphasise patient education, symptom awareness, and coordinated care between primary and specialist services, with a focus on personalised and risk-based surveillance rather than routine imaging or blood tests in asymptomatic patients.

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