Cancer researchers consisting of international researchers also have found that patients of Hodgkin's lymphoma patients who do not respond well to therapies can be identified. This can end up in a less aggressive regimen to be used on patients who are more likely to be cured.

The team that was led by researchers at the B. C. Cancer Agency in Vancouver, noted that macrophages, a certain type of white blood cells, if were in high levels meant poor response to treatment.

For the past 20 years, advances in Hodgkin's lymphoma were stagnant. This was because medicine could not identify patients who won't respond well to the treatment.

Dr Vincent DeVita and Dr Jose Costa of the Yale Cancer Center, in New Haven, said, "If at the time of diagnosis we could identify patients who are destined to have a poor response to treatment, most patients could be spared a combination of therapies or radiotherapy with its attendant long-term toxic effects."

New treatment could be found out sooner by being able to test new therapies only on those who really need them.