Cure for Hodgkin's disease

Hodgkin’s the disease is a type of white blood cells cancer, which cannot be prevented because the real cause is unknown. However, since certain factors of risk have been identified, it can be said that the people who are more prone to developing it are people in the early adulthood and those older than 55, males more than females, those who have Hodgkin’s disease running in family and those with the weakened immune system. Since the initial symptoms are weight loss without a known reason, night sweats, pain or swelling in lymph nodes, enlargement of liver or spleen, or both, easy bleeding and even back pain, the people who notice a few of these symptoms should schedule an appointment with the doctor, and do some checkups, at least in order to exclude this option.

What is the important of this fact that Hodgkin’s lymphoma can be cured, and the sooner it is diagnosed, the better the chances for fighting it off. What’s more, this is one of a very few types of cancer which have a very high rate of complete recovery. The treatment of this serious disease depends on several elements, and some of them are also the sex and the age of the patient, the stage of the disease, and its histological subtype. The main methods of treatment includes radiation therapy or chemotherapy, or both in more severe cases. Chemotherapy consists of drugs which have the purpose to kill the cancer cells in the body, and it can be given through injections or orally. In some cases, the patients should stay in the hospital for several days in order to be monitor, but in others the patients can go home right after it.

Transplantation of the stem cells which are produced in the bone marrow is also one of the options when it comes to the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, especially in the patients in which this disease reoccurred. It is done in the combination with chemotherapy, because firstly, all the old stem cells have to be removed and replaced. The stem cells and marrow can be taken from a donor or from the patient himself. If they are taken from the donor, even though he has to be matched, there is still a possibility that his stem cells will be rejected, which makes this a bit more risky procedure in comparison to the transplantation during which the stem cells are taken from the patient.