Lymphoma symptoms and diagnosis
Lymphoma diagnosis methods range from a thorough examination of the patients medical history, using biopsies, ultrasound or blood testing in order to find the symptoms of lymphomia.
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For lymphomas in the stages 1 or 2, radiotherapy is the best treatment. This is because it will very successfully lead to long periods of remission (symptom free periods) and also in many cases cure the disease completely.
There are different views on treating lymphomia's of the stages 3 or 4 (the low-grade ones). There is one method that recommends using intensive therapy immediately after the patient has been diagnosed, whether there are symptoms or not. The idea is to reach total remission fast. Normal treatment is usually a combination of radiotherapy (high dose) and chemotherapy. Whenever there is aggresive treatment, there is also an increased risk for the patient, but new research show that this type of treatment will often result in high success rate (high rates of reaching remission). Bone marrow transplantation is also an option, currently researched for the use in treatment of low-grade lymphoma.
Lymphoma diagnosis and symptoms
When trying to diagnose lymphoma, doctors may use any of the following options:- Examination of the patient's medical history
- Thorough physical examination (ultrasound etc) looking for enlarged lymph nodes, liver and/or spleen
- Blood testing to determine liver and kidney functionality
- Use a biopsy (insert a needle to withdraw a very small amount of tissue from internal organs) for further examination.
Using lymphoma markers
Lymphocytes, the cells causing lymphomia can cause have been found to have unique and different molecules on their surface. These surface molecules are called markers, or more specifically, CD (cluster differentiation) markers. The work is still going on to catalog these and around 80 different markers have so far been found.A modern diagnose of lymphoma symptoms will always include establishing the presence of at least a few lymphoma markers. In order to do this we need to inspect the molecules rather than the cells as was the case earlier. With the older method of inspecting cells in a microscope, only a few types of lymphomas could actually be distinguished. But as it showed to be the case, the same tumor type would behave different in different patients, which is what led research to move from cellular inspection down to molecular.
The new technique now used is to look for particular molecules of a very specific type that are located on the surface of the cells. On the surface of the cells that carry the lymphoma, these cells are called lymphocytes, the molecules residing there are called CD markers (Cluster Differentiation). We have so far managed to identify a little under one hundred of these different types of cells and what makes them so useful is that when a normal lymphocyte change over time from newly built cells into mature cells, the markers also change. Cells that used to look the same when inspected under a microscope now was found to carry different CD markers leading to completely different behavior.
CD markers and diagnosis of lymphoma symptoms
A modern diagnose of lymphoma today always include the identification of at least a few lymphoma markers. In order to group the actual lymphoma proeperly it is necessary to use a biopsy to grab a sample of the tissue and then perform a number of different CD marker trials on this.Using CD markers for treatment and prognosis
Some of these markers can show the prognosis of the lymphoma in question and there are even markers that will show how certain treatments will perform if applied to the actual case. The CD markers offer a vast improvement to the treatment of lymphomia.