Treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma has a very good success rate and many people can now be cured or stay in remission for many years.
Deciding on the best treatment involves your doctors looking at where the cancer is - a term called the stage.
- Stage 1 - When only one group of nodes are affected.
- Stage 2 - When 2 or more nodes are affected on the same side of the diaphragm (the sheet of muscle under the lungs).
- Stage 3 - When lymph nodes are affected on both sides of the diaphragm.
- Stage 4 - When the lymphoma is affecting the liver, lungs or bone marrow.
The cells will be looked at under the microscope to find out what grade the lymphoma is: grading is about how the cells look under the microscope and how fast growing they are. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is divided into two main grades: low grade (or slow growing) and high grade (or faster growing).
You might hear your doctors or nurses saying that you have CNS (central nervous system) involvement. This means that the lumbar puncture test showed that you have some NHL cells in the fluid around your brain and spine.
Waiting to hear about the stage of the cancer can feel pretty scary, but this information is important, as it helps your doctors plan the right treatment.
There's one final term that you should know - recurrent cancer means the cancer has come back after treatment.
The most common treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma is chemotherapy, supported by the occasional use of radiotherapy. If you have CNS involvement, a tiny amount of your chemotherapy will be injected into your spine to treat it. This is called having an intrathecal (IT) and is done the same way as when you had the lumbar puncture.
If the NHL is low grade, then it is slow growing and may not require treatment for months or possibly years. With treatment, the tumour usually shrinks or disappears, but may return at a later date and require further treatment.
Most lymphomas in young people are high grade, which means they often require immediate treatment, which usually involves chemotherapy.
chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the use of anti cancer drugs to destry cancer cells. High-dose chemo with a stem cell/bone marrow transplant is sometimes used if the cancer returns after initial treatment.
radiotherapy
Radiotherapy uses high energy x-rays to kill cancer cells.
