2023-09-15 01:29:00
Lymphoma can so cleverly masquerade as harmless pathologies that it is often detected at the last stage
Lymphoma is not the most common cancer diagnosis. In the Altai Territory, regarding 500 cases of the disease are detected annually. For example, malignant lung tumors are diagnosed almost three times more often. But this is no reason to relax. The peculiarity of lymphoma is that it successfully “disguises” itself as a harmless disease. For this reason, the true diagnosis is often made already in the later stages of the disease. On World Lymphoma Day (September 15), the head of the department of drug antitumor therapy No. 2 of the Altai Oncology Center, Alina Gofman, reminded how insidious this disease is and why patients need to be more persistent in seeing a doctor.
March through the lymph
Larisa (42 years old) noticed health problems while on vacation abroad: her temperature rose (up to 38.5 degrees), she had severe chills in the heat, and a small but painful lump appeared under her arm. The local hospital suspected an infection and prescribed antibiotics. However, the whole body began to hurt inside.
Returning to Russia, the woman went to the clinic at her place of residence. Dark spots were found on the X-ray of the lungs, tuberculosis was suspected and he was sent to a tuberculosis clinic. But the diagnosis was not confirmed. The search continued, and during an ultrasound, enlarged lymph nodes were discovered.
“There were so many of them in the supraclavicular area that in the picture I looked like airy chocolate – covered in balls,” the woman recalled. The condition worsened every day, the pain was so severe that it might only be relieved for a short time, the throat was swollen so that it was impossible to swallow pills and solid food. So, following just a month and a half from the moment of the first symptoms, she ended up in an oncology clinic – with the 4th stage of the disease.
Moral: lymphoma is a malignant disease that affects immune cells – lymphocytes. Since the structures of the lymphatic system “encircle” the entire human body, lymphoma tends to develop rapidly. Partly for this reason, the disease is often diagnosed in its later stages.
The good news: due to the systemic nature of the pathology, many types of lymphoma respond well to drug therapy. A clear result and significant relief in the patient’s health can be obtained following the first procedure. “I had a patient who was brought in on a gurney: his legs were paralyzed due to the tumor compressing the nerve endings in the pelvis. But following the first course of therapy, he might move independently and take care of himself,” said Alina Goffman.
Doctors are confident that even the fourth stage of lymphoma does not mean that the situation is a dead end. Such patients often achieve remission and live for many years.
Sick at 16
Dasha’s cherished dream came true – she entered medical college. School had just begun when the freshman suddenly caught a very bad cold. “It was so strange. I was actually a person who never gets sick, at most I sneeze for a couple of days, and everything goes away on its own,” she said.
And then her throat hurt very much, it was difficult to breathe, because of the fear of suffocation, the girl might not even sleep. And then she completely fainted right during the lectures. I woke up in intensive care, connected to a ventilator. “When I heard the diagnosis – oncology – I was shocked: where did it come from? I’m only 16?!”
Moral: if most cancers develop in people following 60 years of age, then with lymphoma everything is not so clear. According to typology, lymphomas are divided into two large groups: Hodgkin lymphomas (lymphogranulomatosis) and a group of non-Hodgkin lymphomas. The first type is more common in young patients: the average age is 35–40 years, but cases of the disease are not uncommon among children and adolescents. But non-Hodgkin lymphomas, according to the classics, are more typical for people 65+.
Mother hen syndrome
The everyday life of a sales manager cannot be called calm. And if you are also a “hectic hen” by nature, then life turns into a “time bomb”. Anastasia “exploded” at 31 – she discovered a small lump behind her ear. At the first aid station they suggested observing the formation, linking it with a reaction to recent treatment of a molar.
“What might be better for a pathological workaholic than “just observing”? Of course, I immediately forgot regarding this lump,” the woman recalls. But following a few months the lump began to grow rapidly. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – the doctors pronounced a verdict.
The diagnosis forced the woman to rethink her life. “Previously, with a working day of up to five hours, I might “work” until eight or nine in the evening. While my daughter was going to kindergarten, I was always at the forefront in solving all organizational issues. But now I realized: to be healthy, you need to become selfish. To the maximum remove stress and negativity from your life,” the woman admits.
Moral: The exact causes of lymphoma are not known. “If people had such information, no one would get sick,” says Alina Goffman. But any cancer, as a rule, develops as a result of a combination of several factors. In the case of lymphoma, this may be a hereditary predisposition, regular contact with toxins and carcinogens (chemicals, smoking, alcohol, etc.), viruses, bacteria (for example, herpes, hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, Helicobacter pylori, etc. .), autoimmune and immunodeficiency conditions (HIV, thyrotoxicosis, multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, etc.).
And the “trigger” for the development of the disease is very often stressful situations.
You hear a ringing sound – where is it?
For Irina (54 years old), the first “bells” were reddish lumps on the shins of both legs, 1-2 cm in diameter. About two weeks later, the woman felt a dense lump of regarding a centimeter on her neck. At the same time, discomfort appeared in the chest; it was difficult to breathe while lying on the right side.
“My first thought: intercostal neuralgia,” admitted Irina. The therapist suggested varicose veins and referred me to a vascular surgeon. The treatment did not help, and the woman was referred first to a dermatologist, and then to an infectious disease specialist – by that time several more lumps had appeared on her neck and collarbone.
Additional examinations showed a large number of enlarged nodes in the abdominal cavity, and a CT scan in the chest. More than five months passed from the onset of symptoms to the diagnosis, and all this time those around her said that Irina did not look like a person who might be suspected of cancer.
Moral: recognizing lymphoma in the early stages is rather an exception to the rule. Most often it is confused with other diseases, providing useless treatment for pseudopathologies.
What diseases can lymphoma be confused with and what to do?
– Protracted cold (cough, temperature 37.0-37.5 degrees in the evenings, enlarged cervical lymph nodes and tonsils, “cold” on the lips);
– intercostal neuralgia (tightness in the chest, difficulty breathing in a certain position of the body);
– hyperthyroidism, or excessive function of the thyroid gland (feeling of heat, sweating; only with lymphoma, a person sweats mainly at night, so much so that you have to change your bed linen as if you had poured water on it);
– skin diseases (rash, plaques, papules, accompanied by severe itching);
– digestive disorders (with damage to the lymphatic tissue located in the abdominal cavity – abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, feeling of nausea, loss of appetite, rapid false satiety with food);
– pathologies of the heart, kidneys and liver (edema).
“If symptoms do not go away or decrease 10–15 days following treatment with antibiotics and antiviral drugs, additional examinations should be performed. To exclude lymphoma, you need to undergo an ultrasound of the lymph nodes. If there are suspicious changes in their structure, the doctor should prescribe a biopsy to diagnose the tumor at the cellular level.” , reminds Alina Goffman.
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