Combination Chemotherapy With or Without Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Hodgkin's Lymphoma

OBJECTIVES: * Compare the failure-free survival of patients with locally extensive or advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) vs doxorubicin, vinblastine, vincristine, bleomycin, mechlorethamine, etoposide, and prednisone (Stanford V) with or without radiotherapy. * Compare the overall survival and freedom from progression in these patients at 5 and 10 years after treatment with these regimens. * Compare pulmonary function, incidence of second cancers, reproductive function, and deaths from causes other than Hodgkin's lymphoma in patients treated with these regimens. OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are stratified according to number of adverse risk factors (0-2 vs 3-7), disease characteristics (locally extensive vs advanced) and time of entry (before addendum 6 vs. after addendum 6). Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm A (ABVD): Patients receive doxorubicin (25 mg/m²), bleomycin (10 u/m²), vinblastine (6 mg/m²), and dacarbazine (375 mg/m²) IV on days 1 and 15. Courses repeat every 28 days. Patients are restaged after 4 courses. Patients who are in complete remission receive 2 additional courses. Patients with a partial response or less are evaluated after 6 courses, and if there is an ongoing response, patients may receive 2 additional courses for a total of 8. If no ongoing response is observed, patients are removed from the study. All patients with massive mediastinal disease, regardless of stage, receive radiotherapy 2-3 weeks after completion of chemotherapy. * Arm B (Stanford V): Patients receive Stanford V chemotherapy comprising doxorubicin (25 mg/m²) and vinblastine (6 mg/m²) IV on day 1 of weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11; vincristine (1.4 mg/m²) and bleomycin (5 u/m²) IV on day 1 of weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12; mechlorethamine (6 mg/m²) IV on day 1 of weeks 1, 5, and 9 (if mechlorethamine is unavailable, may substitute with cyclophosphamide \[375 mg/m²\] IV); etoposide (60 mg/m²) IV on days 1 and 2 of weeks 3, 7, and 11; and oral prednisone (40 mg/m²) every other day of weeks 1-9 followed by a taper. All patients with bulky disease receive radiotherapy 2-3 weeks after completion of chemotherapy. Patients are followed every 2 months for 1 year, every 3 months for 1 year, every 4 months for 1 year, every 6 months for 2 years, and then annually thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 850 patients will be accrued for this study within 4.3 years.