NHL on TV

A woman in the support group gave us a link to an episode of "Healthy Body, Healthy Mind" that featured her son, a T Cell Lymphoma patient. The episode is called "Treating Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma," and is available now online.

"Healthy Body, Healthy Mind" is PBS show, available in some local markets (though not mine). It's as 30 minute show that discusses a number of health topics.

"Treating Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma" follows two patients and their doctors, and gives a general overview of NHL. The show divides NHL into B Cell and T Cell types, with one patient and doctor story devoted to each. The physicians are Dr. Owen O'Connor from Columbia University Medical Center, and Dr. Nathan Fowler, M.D. Anderson. Dr. O'Connor seems like a very awesome guy, very personable. They showed less of Dr. Fowler interacting with his patient, but I'm familiar with his name, and know him to be a world-class researcher.

The second half of the show focuses on treatments. While they don't get much into specifics (though O'Connor does mention R-CHOP at one point), it does give a decent, if general overview of where we are now and where we are headed. Dr. Fowler advocates for more research into "targeted, biologic" treatments, and sees them replacing chemotherapy at some point.

I understand the B Cell/T Cell way of organizing the show, though I would have liked to have seen more attention to the indolent/aggressive way of organizing things, which makes more sense to me, personally. That way of dividing NHL does get some mention, so they do acknowledge that there are lots of different subtypes, which is nice.

Overall, a good general introduction to NHL.