Lymphoma : Treatment
Treatment options depend on the type of lymphoma, its stage and your overall health. Treatment may include chemotherapy or radiation therapy, either alone or in combination. It may help to talk to several specialists before deciding on the best course of treatment for you, your disease and your lifestyle.
- A radiation oncologist is a doctor who specializes in destroying diseased cells with high-energy X-rays or other types of radiation.
- A medical oncologist is a doctor who is an expert at prescribing special drugs (chemotherapy) to treat disease. Some medical oncologists are also hematologists, meaning they have experience treating drug disorders.
External Beam Radiation Therapy
External beam radiation therapy is a series of outpatient treatments to deliver radiation to the diseased cells accurately. Radiation therapy has been proven to be very successful at treating and curing lymphoma.
- Radiation oncologists deliver external beam radiation therapy to the lymphoma from a machine called a linear accelerator.
- Each treatment is painless and is similar to getting an X-ray. Treatments last less than 30 minutes each, every day but Saturday and Sunday, for several weeks.
- Involved field radiation is when your doctor delivers radiation only to the parts of your body known to have the disease. It is often combined with chemotherapy. Radiation above the diaphragm to the neck, chest and/or underarms is called mantle field radiation. Treatment below the diaphragm to the abdomen, spleen and/or pelvis is called inverted-Y field radiation.
- Your radiation oncologist may deliver radiation to all the lymph nodes in the body to destroy cells that may have spread to other lymph nodes. This is called total nodal irradiation.
- Your radiation oncologist may also deliver radiation to the entire body. This is called total body irradiation. It is often done before chemotherapy and a stem cell or bone marrow transplant to eliminate any diseased cells.
Radiation therapy may be used alone or in combination with chemotherapy or biologic therapy. You will work with your radiation oncologist to agree on a treatment plan that is best for you.
Biologic Therapy
Also called immunotherapy, biologic therapy works with your immune system to fight disease. Biologic therapy is like chemotherapy. The difference is that chemotherapy attacks the diseased cells directly, and biologic therapy helps your immune system fight the disease.
- Monoclonal antibodies work by targeting certain molecules in the body and attaching themselves to those molecules.This causes some cells to die and makes others more likely to be destroyed by radiation and chemotherapy.
- Radiolabeled antibodies are monoclonal antibodies with radioactive particles attached. These antibodies are designed to attach themselves directly to the diseased cells and damage them with small amounts of radiation without injuring nearby healthy tissue.
