Understanding your diagnosis
As someone who’s been recently diagnosed with aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), you will have received a lot of information in a short space of time and it may be difficult to remember and understand it all.
At Lymphoma Life, we can provide information about how you were likely to have been diagnosed with aggressive NHL, what this means and why it is important.
Don’t worry if some of the information seems to be more than you can take in all at once. You can return to it as many times as you need.
Your non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma must be diagnosed correctly before it can be successfully treated
There are many types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). You have been diagnosed with aggressive NHL. To ensure that the treatment you receive will be right for you, your doctor will have conducted a number of tests to find out what stage your NHL is at before you begin.
Tests will also be conducted during and after treatment to assess your condition and find out how well treatment has worked for you.
Staging tests are used to check how far your aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has progressed
Many different tests, including X-rays, CT (computerised tomography) scans and PET (positron emission tomography) scans, as well as bone marrow biopsies and blood tests, are carried out to help confirm the stage of your NHL, which can be stage I, II, III or IV.
The results of these tests tell you:
- How many lymph nodes are affected
- Whether the lymphoma is only in the lymph nodes or whether it can be found in other organs as well
- Whether the lymphoma is in the chest or the abdomen, or both
It is very important to know the stage of the lymphoma in order that your doctor can choose the correct treatment.
Find out more about tests for disease staging of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Biopsies
Biopsies are usually simple procedures in which tissue samples are removed and examined to help the doctor diagnose your non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) accurately.
There are a number of different biopsy techniques which may have been used to diagnose your aggressive NHL. They may also be used to monitor the disease and see how well your treatment is working.
Find out more about biopsies to test for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma