Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about lymphoma. And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at serodifinals.com slash lymphoma or in the hematology section of the zero definals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Lymphomas are a group of cancers that affect the lymphocytes inside the lymphatic system.

And these cancerous cells proliferate within the lymph nodes

and cause the lymph nodes to become abnormally large.

And we call this lymphadenopathy. There are two main categories of lymphoma, Hodgkins

lymphoma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Hodgkins lymphoma is a specific disease, whereas non-Hodgkins

lymphoma encompasses all the other lymphomas. This is a specific disease, whereas non-Hodgkins lymphoma encompasses all the other lymphomas.

This is a bit like small-cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

Hodgkin's lymphoma is the most likely specific lymphoma to appear in your exams, so we'll

focus on that first.

Overall, about one in five lymphomas are Hodgkin's lymphoma.

It's caused by proliferation of lymphocytes and there's a bimodal age distribution with peaks around age 20

and 75 years. There's a few risk factors you should be aware of. HIV is a big

risk factor, the Epstein-Barr virus that causes glandular fever, autoimmune conditions such as

rheumatoid arthritis and sarcoidosis, and a family history of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

So how does it present?

Or lymphadenopathy is a key presenting symptom.

And this is where you get abnormally large lymph nodes.

And these might be in the neck, in the armpit, or what we call the axilla,

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