Blog / Random thoughts and musings.

New Pathology Results

Today I got back the results of my follow-up tissue analysis, this time done by the NIH/NCI lab (National Institutes of Health / National Cancer Institute). They also confirm the Hodgkin’s Disease diagnosis, but they also add some interesting information on the connection with Crohn’s disease, and in particular with the 5 years or so I’ve been taking 6-MP immune suppressants and one year of Remicade anti-TNF treatment:

“There are cases reported as extranodal classical Hodgkin lymphoma arising in Crohn’s disease treated with long-term immunosuppressive treatment, and recently, also with anti-TNF administration. In immunosuppressed patients these cases are nearly always EBV positive and they may spontaneously regress after reduction of immunosuppressive therapy. Given the clinical setting of this patient, reduction of immunosuppression may be an option, especially if the EBV driven process is localized”.

So, I want to discuss this further with my oncologist to find out if I really need to start chemotherapy right away or if I can just stop my immune suppressants and then monitor the Hodgkin’s over time. Maybe I’m getting my hopes up too much, since I’m not really looking forward to chemo, but I do want to at least discuss this further to understand what it means.