In general, lymphoma patients can be categorized in two large brackets: those that want to know everything there is to know about lymphoma cancer and those that just want to bury their head into the sand and never think about it ever again. However, sooner, rather than later, every single person that has been diagnosed with either variation of lymphoma needs to know only one thing: the lymphoma survival rate. Scientists have determined that, for the most part, the patients that suffer from Hodgkin lymphoma have less chances at surviving this terrible disease than those that have been diagnosed with non – Hodgkin lymphoma or even leukemia, as scary as that might sound. That is considered fact in the medical world. Nevertheless, the prognosis depends on a lot of factors. Actually, it revolves around more factors then the physicians are willing to explain to a patient and that makes the survival rate a very tricky thing to determine.

What does all that mean? Well, to put it simply, it means the following: nobody really knows how long a patient has and how they will respond to any sort of medical care. Basically, due to the fact that lymphoma cancer is such a customized disease, the treatment itself can affect different people differently. It might work for some on the first round of chemotherapy, ensuring that their health is restored to its original state. Or it might never work properly, allowing the disease to end the patient’s life before its time.

Before discussing about what influences the lymphoma survival rate, a patient should always be informed about what it means to survive lymphoma cancer and its subsequent remissions, if they appear. In essence, in order to make it through, you have to change. Change what? Everything. Literally everything. From the way you think about yourself to the way you interact with the world. From what you eat to what you wear. From where you live to the people or pets that live with you. There is no actual known trigger for lymphoma, but it is generally accepted and considered true that the environment has something to do with it. Of course, so do genetics, but those cannot be controlled, so it is best to focus on things that you can modify.

The main factors that contribute to the increase or decrease of the lymphoma survival rate are the following:

• Age: surprisingly or not, it is important at what age the patient is diagnosed with lymphoma. For the most cases, if the patient is young, strong and otherwise healthy, the disease tends to be less debilitating then in other patients whom do not share the same characteristics. In theory, it is less likely for a lymphatic vessel to rupture when a lymphedema appears if the vessels are structurally sturdy. However, this has been proved wrong in some patients. For example, if there is such thing, young is better to develop lymphoma in terms of surviving it. Unfortunately, even young has its limits. You see, if the patient is too young, say a preteen or a teenager, their immune system is not fully developed, since it has not gone through everything it needs to go through to make it whole and functioning properly. Some preteens have never had chicken pox or a serious viral infection and they lack some antibodies. Now, it does not mean that if you did have chicken pox as a child, those specific antibodies will fight the cancer. No, it is more of a principle thing: your body knows how to react when it is invaded by things that want to hurt it. A rather different standard applies to elderly patients: their immune system has been battered through their long life and it simply cannot hold its own anymore. Unfortunately, no matter how many drugs one takes or how good those drugs are, if your body is not cooperating, then they will not work.
• Physiological state: it is just fancy way of saying that pregnancy can and will affect the lymphoma survival rate. Yes, sadly, lymphoma can be triggered by pregnancy. This means only one thing: as a physician, you are not treating just one body, you are treating two. As a patient, you have to be aware that whatever goes into your body will go into your unborn child’s body as well. The even sadder reality is that, no matter the development of the baby, if you start treatment for lymphoma, he or she will not survive. It all goes back to the age problem: your child is simply too fragile to make it through all that. There are women out there that have been diagnosed with lymphoma very late into their pregnancy, at the end of their third trimester. These ladies have chosen to wait it out, to have the baby and then start the treatment. The real question is: did the baby have it? In most cases, no. In some cases, yes. It depends on genetics and on the number of months that the mother has had cancer. One of the oddities of this situation is that, while a woman who has recently given birth might seem a bit fragile, the reality is vastly different. Her body is filled to the brim with all sorts of health boosting chemicals, also known as “Mother Nature’s way of ensuring the baby is taken care of”. Which means, strangely or not, that starting chemotherapy right after birth is a good thing. Unfortunately, if the woman undergoes an abortion, the chemotherapy should be postponed for at least a month or six weeks, to allow her body to recover properly.
• Health: it is obvious even to the most inexperienced person why health issues might affect the lymphoma survival rate. Simply put, if you are the very picture of health, the chances of coming out victorious from your battle with cancer are very good. However, once you pile up health issues on top of the lymphoma, things start to look a bit bleak. For example, as a general rule, if a patient suffers from some sort of heart disease, the chemotherapy will be particularly harsh on him or her. Now, chemotherapy is not pretty for anyone, be them a twenty year old athlete or a fifty year old housewife. Nonetheless, the nausea, the alopecia and the fatigue are extremely magnified by a heart condition. Literally, these types of patients are bed ridden thorough a bout of chemotherapy. Another health problem that really makes treatment for lymphoma difficult is related to the kidneys. If anything, and I do mean anything, is wrong with the kidneys, the chemotherapy drugs will not be able to work properly. Why is that? Well, because more than ninety percent of these drugs are eliminated through the kidneys. You see, if you have a chronic renal problem, the chances are that the usual doses of drugs will send you directly into renal failure. Lowering the doses might seem like the natural thing to do. However, if you lower the doses, it takes longer for the chemotherapy to work. Which, of course, leads to the most amazing paradox: if the cancer does not kill you in the meantime, the inevitable renal failure will. The real solution for these patients are experimental drugs, that are not metabolized and eliminated through the kidneys, but rather through the liver.