follicular lymphoma symptoms | Follicular Lymphoma

Follicular Lymphoma

Follicular lymphoma is a B-cell lymphoma. The word "follicular" refers to how lymphoma cells gather in clusters in a lymph node or other tissues.

Follicular lymphoma is the 2nd most common type of lymphoma non Hodgkin (NHL). It usually appears in adults of 50 years or more, and the average age at diagnosis is 59. It affects slightly more women than the men.

In most cases, follicular lymphoma is diagnosed at stage 3 or 4. It often spreads to the bone marrow and spleen, but it usually doesn't affect other organs and tissue as lymph nodes.

Sometimes follicular Lymphoma turns into diffuse Lymphoma large cell B (DLBCL). DLBCL is a type of NHL rapidly evolving (aggressive).

Symptoms
It is possible that the follicular Lymphoma causes no symptoms. Sometimes, the lymph nodes from different parts of the body are bigger than normal.

Prognostic factors
The care team is used in Follicular Lymphoma International prognosis Index (FLIPI) to help assess people with this disease and plan treatment. People who have favorable prognostic factors should respond to treatment. The risk of recurrence of follicular Lymphoma after treatment (recurrence) is higher when a person presents unfavorable prognostic factors.

The care team assigned 1 point for each negative prognostic factor. She then adds them to get a score from 0 to 5. People whose prognostic factors are favorable and that low score have a better prognosis who have 3 adverse prognostic factors or more and whose score is high.

Treatments
There are many options of treatment for follicular lymphoma. This type of NHL reappears (recurrence), often after being treated, but he usually reacts to another series of treatments. The person often manages again to remission after having been processed yet, but remissions are usually more and shorter with each series of treatments.

Radiotherapy
Is used in external radiotherapy to treat lymph node regions affected by Lymphoma follicular stage 1 or 2. We can then talk about radiotherapy of the reached field.

Follicular lymphoma is usually more advanced (stage 3 or 4) and generally spread to more than one ganglion region when it is diagnosed. May be given to low-dose external radiation therapy to help relieve symptoms when follicular lymphoma is more advanced.

Vigilant observation
We can provide vigilant observation, also called active surveillance, for follicular Lymphoma since it develops slowly and maybe didn't need to be treated immediately. The health care team carefully monitors the person with follicular lymphoma and begins treatment when symptoms appear or if there are signs that the disease progresses faster.

Chemotherapy
May be offered chemotherapy to treat follicular Lymphoma, particularly if it has spread to several groups of lymph nodes or other organs and it causes symptoms. You can administer a single chemotherapy or add some.

Chemotherapy is often associated with a targeted drug.

Can be used in one of these drugs:

Fludarabine (Fludara)
bendamustine (Treanda)
chlorambucil (Leukeran)
We can administer these combinations:

CHOP - cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan Procytox), doxorubicin (Adriamycin), vincristine (Oncovin), and prednisone
R - CHOP - CHOP with rituximab (Rituxan)
CVP - cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone
R - CVP - CVP with rituximab
FND - fludarabine, mitoxantrone (Novantrone) and dexamethasone (Decadron, Dexasone)
BR - bendamustine and rituximab
Targeted treatment
Targeted therapy is medication used to target specific molecules (and proteins) located on the surface of cancer cells. These molecules contribute to sending signals that tell cells to grow or divide. By targeting these molecules, drugs interrupt the growth and spread of cancer cells while minimizing damage to normal cells.

Rituximab is a targeted drug administered to treat follicular lymphoma. It may be given alone or combine it with chemotherapy. It can also be used as maintenance therapy after chemotherapy.

There are other targeted drugs that can be used when follicular Lymphoma reappears after having been Treaty (recidivism) or when it no longer respond to treatment, the disease is refractory:

ibritumomab (Zevalin)
idelalisib (Zydelig)
obinutuzumab (Gazyva) with bendamustine
The ibritumomab is a type of radioimmunotherapy, which sets a radioactive material to the targeted drug. The targeted drug attaches to the lymphoma cells, making sure the radiation is administered directly to these cells, which may mean fewer side effects or the less serious side effects.

Stem cell transplant
Stem cell transplant may be an option for some people if the follicular Lymphoma recurs after treatment (recurrence) or if it does not respond to treatment (refractory disease).