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Understanding Hodgkin's Disease - Diagnosis and Treatment
How Do I Know If I Have Hodgkin's Disease?
The diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease can only be made by a tissue biopsy. If you have an enlarged, painless lymph node that your doctor suspects may be due to Hodgkin's disease, you will need to have a biopsy of this node. This can be done by cutting into the node to remove a sample of tissue or by removing the entire node.
If a biopsy reveals that you do have Hodgkin's lymphoma, you may need additional tests, including blood tests, bone marrow biopsy, chest X-ray, computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, bone scans, or spinal tap (lumbar puncture). Tissue samples may be sent to laboratories for further testing.
These tests will give your doctor important information that can help determine the best type of therapy for your disease. Your doctor will designate a stage that describes the severity and spread of your lymphoma.
What Is the Stage?
The prognosis and specific treatment used to treat Hodgkin's depends on the stage of the disease or how widespread the disease is.
Stage I. Hodgkin's disease is found in only 1 lymph node area or has extended locally into adjacent tissue.
Stage II. Hodgkin's disease is found in 2 or more lymph node areas on the same side of the diaphragm (the muscle beneath the lungs that moves up and down to help you breathe) or the cancer extends from the lymph node(s) to adjacent tissue.
Stage III. Hodgkin's disease is in lymph nodes on both sides of the diaphragm, or the cancer may also have extended to an area or organ adjacent to the lymph node and/or to the spleen.
Stage IV. Hodgkin's disease has spread to 1 or more organs outside the lymphatic system such as the bone marrow or liver.
Progressive or Recurrent Hodgkin's Disease. Progressive disease is the term used when the disease progresses while you are still being treated. Recurrent disease means that Hodgkin's disease has come back after it has been treated. This may occur shortly after treatment or years later.
What is the Treatment?
The goal of treatment is to get rid of the cancer cells with as little damage as possible to normal cells, while also limiting difficult side effects of treatment. Talk with your doctor about any side effects you experience.
The most common treatments for Hodgkin's disease include chemotherapy drugs, often with radiation therapy (using a focused beam of radiation) to kill cancer cells. Patients with Hodgkin's disease that is refractory to or returns after initial treatment may need autologous stem cell transplantation. In this procedure, higher doses of chemotherapy and/or total body irradiation are applied in an effort to destroy Hodgkin's disease cells that have survived standard therapy. As a side effect, the higher doses of therapy are likely to destroy normal blood and bone marrow cells. Therefore, normal bone marrow stem cells are taken from the patient’s bloodstream before they undergo chemotherapy or radiation. The stem cells are then frozen and saved and returned to your body intravenously after your treatment in order to repair the bone marrow.
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