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ENCYCLOPEDIA INDEX

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Hodgkins lymphoma

Alternative Names:

Lymphoma - Hodgkin's; Hodgkin's disease; Cancer - Hodgkin's lymphoma

Symptoms:

Painless swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck, armpits, or groin (swollen glands)
Fatigue
Fever and chills
Night sweats
Weight loss
Loss of appetite
Generalized itching

Additional symptoms that may be associated with this disease:

Signs and tests:

The disease may be diagnosed after:

A staging evaluation (tumor staging) to determine extent of disease includes:

A physical examination
CT scans of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis
A bone marrow biopsy
Blood chemistry tests
A PET scan (a nuclear medicine test that looks for tumor cells throughout the body)
Abdominal surgery to biopsy the liver and take out the spleen to see if it is affected by the lymphoma. However, because the other tests are now so good at detecting the spread of Hodgkin's lymphoma, this surgery is usually unnecessary.

This disease may change the results of the following tests: