What clinical features discriminate between high-grade and low-grade lymphoma?
A cancer of lymphocytes (a type of white blood cells) is called a lymphoma. These cells are present in spleen, lymph nodes, thymus and bone marrow. It presents as fever swelling of lymph nodes, fatigue, night sweats, and weight loss. It is divided into Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). They can both be caused by lymphocytes of B or T cells. It can be graded as high grade or low grade lymphoma. Low grade lymphomas are also known as indolent or slow growing lymphomas while high grade lymphomas are aggressive lymphomas. Low grade lymphoma is slow, incurable but patients respond to treatment, localized and may even only need to be monitored. These present as little to no symptoms like fever, night sweats, weight loss, fatigue, abdominal pain. High grade lymphoma is aggressive, spread to other organs, need treatment right away and have severe sign symptoms limiting daily life activities.