Treatment

Your doctor can describe your treatment choices and the expected results. You and your doctor can work together to develop a treatment plan that meets your needs

The choice of treatment depends mainly on the following:

• The type of your Hodgkin lymphoma (most people have classical Hodgkin lymphoma)
• Its stage (where the lymphoma is found)
• Whether you have a mass or tumor that is more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) wide
• Your age
• Whether you’ve had weight loss, drenching night sweats, or fevers.

People with Hodgkin lymphoma may be treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or both. If Hodgkin lymphoma comes back after treatment, doctors call this a relapse or recurrence. People with Hodgkin lymphoma that comes back after treatment may receive high doses of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or both, followed by stem cell transplantation.

You may want to know about side effects and how treatment may change your normal activities. Because chemotherapy and radiation therapy often damage healthy cells and tissues, side effects are common. Side effects may not be the same for each person, and they may change from one treatment session to the next.

Before treatment starts, your health care team will explain possible side effects and suggest ways to help you manage them. The younger a person is, the easier it may be to cope with treatment and its side effects. At any stage of the disease, you can have supportive care. Supportive care is treatment to prevent or fight infections, to control pain and other symptoms, to relieve the side effects of therapy, and to help you cope with the feelings that a diagnosis of cancer can bring.

Clinical Trials

New treatments are always being tested in clinical trials and some patients with cancer may want to consider participating in one of these research studies. These studies are meant to help improve current cancer treatments or obtain information on new treatments. Talk to your doctor about the clinical trials that may be right for you.