The treatment usually lasts for at least 6 months. But sometimes you have treatment once a week instead of once every few weeks. In this case the treatment lasts for 3 or 4 months.
Treatment for many patients is chemotherapy (usually 2 to 4 cycles of the ABVD regimen), followed by radiation to the initial site of the disease (involved site radiation therapy, or ISRT). Another option is chemotherapy alone (usually for 3 to 6 cycles) in selected patients.
For Hodgkin lymphoma, you will have several chemotherapy drugs, usually given in cycles spread over 3–6 months. Each cycle takes 2–4 weeks and includes rest days. Sometimes after the first 2 cycles, you may have a PET–CT scan to check how the Hodgkin lymphoma has responded.
Stages III, IV, and most stage II bulky lymphomas
The chemo can be a single chemo drug (such as bendamustine or fludarabine) or a combination of drugs, such as the CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) or CVP (cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone) regimens.
Treatment for stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma is usually 2 to 4 cycles of chemotherapy. You might also have radiotherapy.
Stage 4 lymphoma means that cancer has spread to an organ external to the lymphatic system. The survival rates vary widely depending on an individual's risk factors and type of cancer. The survival rate of stage 4 lymphoma is lower than that of the other stages, but doctors can cure the condition in some cases.
Doctors typically use highly aggressive chemotherapy that often require admission to the hospital to treat this subtype of NHL.
Hair loss is quite common in people who are treated with chemotherapy; overall, around 2 in 3 people experience hair loss. Chemotherapy kills lymphoma cells, but it can also destroy healthy cells, particularly those that normally divide quickly. Hair follicles produce hair.
You will often receive chemo in sessions where you have treatment for several weeks, followed by a few weeks off before resuming. Your tumor may start to shrink after one round, but it can also take months. Your oncologist will have a personal discussion with you about how long they think results might take.
Chemotherapy can cause some damage to the lining of your bowel wall. This can lead to cramping, wind, abdominal swelling and diarrhoea. Be sure to tell the nurses and doctors if you experience any of these symptoms.
While chemotherapy is one of the oldest and most successful ways of treating cancer, it doesn't always work. So, yes, cancer can spread during chemotherapy. Spreading could mean the tumor keeps growing, or that the original tumor shrinks, but cancer metastasizes, forming tumors in other areas of the body.
Even if you've completed treatment, your doctors will still want to watch you closely. It's very important to go to all of your follow-up appointments, because lymphoma can sometimes come back even many years after treatment.
Most relapses of Hodgkin lymphoma or high-grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma happen within the first 2 years after treatment. As time goes on, relapse generally becomes less likely.
Lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma or Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia.
This is a rare, slow-growing type of lymphoma. It's found mainly in the bone marrow, lymph nodes, and spleen. This type of lymphoma can't be cured. But people can live with it for many years.
Stage 2. Around 90 out of 100 people (around 90%) will survive their Hodgkin lymphoma for 5 years or more after diagnosis.
Chemotherapy can cause your hair to fall out, but not all chemotherapy drugs make your hair fall out. It will usually happen within 2 to 3 weeks of starting treatment. Some chemotherapy drugs can make other hair from your body fall out, such as facial hair and pubic hair.
Background: Six cycles of R-CHOP (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) are the standard treatment for aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
A return to normalcy is typical, but it takes a while – usually six months or so. “All who have done chemo do finally get back to normal,” Patricia said. “Treatment for breast cancer can take a whole year, but six months after it ends, life comes back – incisions heal, hair grows back, chemo brain fog lifts.”
Chemotherapy drugs target cancer cells which stop or slow their growth. A person undergoing chemotherapy should avoid eating undercooked or raw food, interacting with actively infectious people, overexerting themselves, and consuming too much alcohol.
Whether it's due to pain from a growing tumor, swallowing difficulties caused by radiation therapy, or the nausea, loss of appetite or mouth sores that are sometimes caused by chemotherapy, involuntary weight loss is a serious side effect of cancer and its treatment for many patients.
Stage 3 lymphoma is treatable and often curable. Advances in new research, and clinical trials, are happening worldwide for this condition. You have every reason to hope and plan for a cancer-free future.
So, depending on where your cancer is some people have their chemotherapy drug, their cancer drug by drip, some will have an injection and other people will have tablets. So, Iris, your chemotherapy is going to be given to you in what we call cycles and the cycles are given every three weeks for a period of six cycles.
The 5-year survival rate for NHL in the United States is 74%. The survival rates for NHL vary based on several factors. These include the stage and subtype of cancer, a person's age and general health, and how well the treatment plan works. For stage I NHL, the 5-year relative survival rate is more than 86%.
Burkitt lymphoma grows very rapidly, which means that symptoms usually develop quickly, over just a few days or weeks. The most common symptom is one or more lumps, which often develop in several parts of your body. These are swollen lymph nodes.