A close family friend has Lymphoma, can anyone please help me understand what is!
Question:
A close family friend has Lymphoma, can anyone please help me understand what is going on?
I know she had Lymphoma about a year ago and it was in remission. I recently found out she has it again, this time on her head and in her brain. I've been told it is malignent. I've been told she has 8-10 nodules on her head and scans show small spots in her brain now. She is getting chemo and the doctor said it is not cancerous yet but it could change at any time. I have been to several lymphoma websites, I don't know enough of her details to understand most of what I am reading in relation to her. Can anyone help me understand, in more simple terms what is happening to her and how she is (could be) treating this?
Answers:
Lymphoma can be divided into two broad groups: Hodgkin's lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).
NHL describes a group of cancers arising from lymphocytes which is a type of White Blood Cell.
Hodgkin's is typically characterised as the orderly spread of disease from one lymph node group to another.
The non-Hodgkin lymphomas are a diverse group of diseases with varying courses, treatments, and prognoses. Aggressive lymphoma is usually treated with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy.
There has also been some success with Immunotherapy (a form of treatment that uses the body's immune system to fight cancer ) and Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), or Bone marrow transplantation (BMT). (This replaces white blood cells that are damaged or destroyed by treatment so they can fight the cancer)
Long-term survival or cure rates for these diseases vary with a number of prognostic factors.
Hodgkin's is usually treated by combination chemotherapy. With appropriate treatment, over 85% of Hodgkin's lymphoma cases are curable.
It sounds as though your friend has NHL. Unfortunately I can not be more specific without knowing which lymphoma it is, so have tried to be as general as possible.