Objective：The aim of this study was to explore whether pretreatment Epstein-Barr virus DNA (EBV DNA) status may influence prognosis in newly diagnosed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients. Methods：We retrospectively analyzed 82 HL patients diagnosed between January 2013 and November 2019 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Results：Among 82 enrolled HL patients, the median age was 32 years (range, 12-79). With a median follow-up of 25 months (4-84 months), the 2-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rate was 68.4% and 93.0%, respectively. 12.2% (10/82) patients had positive EBV DNA status and the median viral load of them was 8.66×10^3 copies/mL (range, 5.21×10^3-5.35×10^4copies/mL). Those with positive EBV DNA status had inferior PFS (P=0.003) as well as OS (P<0.001). Baseline EBV DNA status was observed as an independent prognostic factor in OS (hazard ratio 7.238, 95% CI 1.252-41.851, P=0.027) on multivariate Cox analysis while a trend to predict PFS (hazard ratio 2.567, 95% CI 0.989-7.162, P=0.056). Conclusion：Our data demonstrated that pertreatment EBV DNA status can be an optimal biomaker to reflect HL patients prognosis.