Aids Related Lymphoma

Aids related Lymphoma is a condition in which the malignant cells are found in the lymphs in the patients. This is normally found in patients who have AIDS. The AIDS or the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a condition that is caused by the virus HIV or the human immunodeficiency virus. This normally attacks the entire immune system and also weakens it completely. There are many infections and other diseases that are seen to affect the systems in the body and also invade it completely. The immune system sometimes is unable to fight these infections.

The lymph system has thin blood vessel like tubes which totally branch out into the entire body. These lymph vessels carry a watery fluid without any colour called the lymph and this fluid contains blood cells called lymphocytes. Along this network of blood vessels are small organs which are shaped like a bean and these are called lymph nodes.

Sometimes there are groups of such lymph nodes which store the cells which are seen fighting the infection. Lymphocytes are made in the spleen which is an organ found in the upper part of the abdomen. The spleen does the job of filtering the old blood cells from the blood. The thymus is another small organ that is below the breastbone. The tonsils is a throat organ. The spleen, tonsils and the thymus are all parts of the lymph system. As the lymph tissue is found in many parts of the body, the cancer cells are seen to spread in any part of the body or tissues of the bone marrow, liver, the brain and the spleen.

Lymphomas are basically of two types one is the Hodgkin’s disease and the other is the non Hodgkin’s disease. These are basically divided by the appearance of the cells under a microscope. The way these are determined is called the histology. This is a method that is also used to find out the category of the non Hodgkin’s lymphoma which is of ten types. The varieties of non Hodgkin’s lymphomas are again divided as per the way they spread. So they could be categorized as high grade, intermediate and low grade lymphoma. It is seen that generally the intermediate or the high grade lymphomas spread faster that the low grade lymphoma.

Aids related lymphoma occurs in both Hodgkin’s or non Hodgkin’s kind of lymphoma. AIDS patients are more prone to have the intermediate and high grade kind of non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. These are the two types of lymphoma that are seen to occur in the children and the adults.

So the doctor should always look out for any symptoms that are there for a very long time. It could be painless swelling in the nodes of the lymph, the underarm, the neck, the groin. The patient could have fever and also night swears. Sometimes the person feels very tired and has a weight loss without any kind of dieting. Itchy skin is also a signal that something is wrong with the lymph nodes.

Eventually when a person is diagnosed with lymphoma and also has AIDS, then a doctor carefully examines him to look out for any swelling, any lumps in the neck, groin or underarm. If the doctor feels that the lymph nodes are not normal, then the doctor might cut out a piece of tissue and examine it under the microscope and to see if there are any cancer cells that are visible. This is what is called a biopsy.

Lymphomas are thus determined by the rapid rate at which they grow, the way they can be cured, and how long they would survive and the related similarities. Patients with AIDS related lymphoma respond to al the treatments in a different manner than those patients who are having lymphoma not related to AIDS. It has been seen that therapy spoils the immune system greatly and patients who have the AIDS related lymphoma are normaly given a lower doses of drugs than patients who are not victims of AIDS.

If the AIDS related lymphoma is diagnose then there are more tests that are done to find out how the cancer is growing.