Chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Mature lymphocytes with normal structure. Gumprecht shadows

Bone marrow in CLL

Principles of treatment

•Difficult to treat due to older age and multiple comorbidities of patients

•Drug therapy is not required until patients become symptomatic or display evidence of rapid progression of disease

•Chemotherapy (nucleoside analogues)

•Monoclonal antibodies

•Stem cell transplantation

Lymphomas

Hodgkin’s lymphoma

•B-cell lymphoma

•Potentially curable

•Morbidity is 2.1 per 100000

Clinical presentation

•Lymphoproliferative syndrome

•Constitutional symptoms (fever, malaise, swellings, weight loss)

•Pruritus

•Signs of compression (mediastenal lymphadenopathy)

•Extranodular involvement (lungs: chest pain, cough, dyspnea; back or bone pain)

Morphological classification

•Nodular sclerosis

•Lymphocyte depletion

•Lymphocyte rich

•Mixed cellularity

Diagnosis

•Lymph node biopsy: Reed-Sternberg cells, Hodgkin cells)

•Imaging (to assess the stage and prognosis): X-ray, chest, abdominal and pelvic CT, PET-scanning