Clearer treatment diagnoses for Hodgkin lymphoma patients are now possible after a breakthrough research discovery from the B.C. Cancer Agency.
Researchers have determined a patient’s recovery prognosis is linked to the number of macrophages (a type of white blood cell) found within a cancerous tumour - the larger the number of macrophages, the higher the relapse risk.
“You can adopt different strategies depending on what [a patient’s] prognosis is,” said Dr. Joseph Connors, one of the study’s researchers, on Wednesday. “It could provide the clinician with additional guidance.”
Currently, 75 to 80 per cent of Hodgkin lymphoma patients respond to initial treatment.
Connors said being able to immediately identify that minority which won’t respond allows doctors to pursue more aggressive treatments than usual.
By the same token, patients with better prognoses could perhaps avoid some of the harsher elements of treatment, ultimately resulting in “less expensive, less time consuming and less toxic” therapies.
“In that example, one could think of eliminating the radiation therapy,” Connors said, adding radiation treatment heightened the risk of infertility, premature menopause and other cancers.
The B.C. Cancer Agency’s Hodgkin lymphoma study is currently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
