![]() ![]() ![]() Your doctor may recommend a lymph node biopsy procedure to remove all or part of a lymph node for laboratory testing. Your doctor checks for swollen lymph nodes, including in your neck, underarm and groin, as well as a swollen spleen or liver. ![]() Tests and procedures used to diagnose lymphoma include: This second procedure removes a small piece of bone tissue and the enclosed marrow. A bone marrow biopsy is often done at the same time. In a bone marrow aspiration, a health care provider uses a thin needle to remove a small amount of liquid bone marrow, usually from a spot in the back of your hipbone (pelvis). So that sharing of information between your team and you is critical to your outcome and the best results we could hope for. The goal moving forward is for you to have the best outcome possible. Partner with your physician, your nurse practitioner, your PA and other members of the team and ask questions. So that's a strong motivation for you to be healthy by eating well and exercising regularly. The good news is that many studies have shown that a healthy patient who's in good shape actually has a better outcome when receiving treatment for lymphoma. Generally, however, what a healthy balanced diet and a good exercise program is doing is improving your general well-being, improving your immune system function, and allowing you to tolerate the chemotherapy and fight against the cancer to a greater degree. There isn't a treatment or exercise program that directly targets or goes after the lymphoma cells. Unfortunately, that's not exactly correct. So those cells may be depleted, and your immune system may become a little bit more suppressed as one of the potential side effects of therapy. But some of the lymphoma cells and some of the normal cells have the same proteins. ![]() Immunotherapy, as I mentioned, binds or attacks proteins on the outsides of cells. The challenge, however, is there are healthy cells that may also be growing quickly. The goal of chemotherapy is to kill quickly- growing cells, which is a good thing because lymphoma, many times, those cells are growing quickly. Chemotherapy, or chemical drugs that are targeting the cancer, immunotherapy, or antibody treatments that are going after proteins that are on the outside of the cancer or lymphoma cells. Well, important to know that chemotherapy may have two components. So, if you have a cancer that is very low-grade, growing very slowly, giving you no symptoms, we would hold off on treatment and only initiate it when you truly need it. So we want to weigh up the potential risks and side effects that come with treatment compared to, clearly, the risks and side effects that come from the cancer. However, we do not have a curative treatment that will fix the cancer right away. Low-grade lymphomas have an advantage in that they can take a very long time to cause any symptoms, and certainly a very long time to put the patient's health at risk. Well, I think it's important to recognize what the goals of treatment are. That does, however, require something else to happen, often in the way of exposures to toxins or viruses or something else. But we think there are some susceptibility genes that may put you at risk for being more likely to get lymphoma. This is not a disease that's passed down in families, although families can be more susceptible. But exactly what brought about that genetic change, we don't always know. That causes them to slowly accumulate over time. And as they do that, they may grow quicker than they should, and they may persist and not die off like they should. We can see that the cells undergo a genetic change. We do know what exactly happens in the cells. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |