Sunday, November 3, 2019

How One FL Patient Was Treated

Targeted Oncology has another video series on Follicular Lymphoma. It features Dr. Jonathan Friedberg from the Wilmont Cancer Institute in Rochester, NY.

As with many of these video series, I find this one interesting because it provides some very up-to-date information about FL and one expert's opinions on that information. (That doesn't mean it's new information, which is OK, too. It's nice to now the stuff I already know is up to date.)

The series features Dr. Friedberg talking about newer treatments in Follicular Lymphoma, but what I find most interesting is the video called "59 Year Old With Relapsed Follicuar Lymphoma." In the video, Dr. Friedberg gives a case study of an FL patient.

Now, I've watched enough Call the Midwife by now that I could almost certainly deliver a baby by myself. And I've read enough about FL that could guess an expert's recommended treatment.

So I watched the video and made my guess.

Here's what we know (copied from the Targeted Oncology website):

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Case: A 59-Year-Old Man With Symptomatic Follicular Lymphoma
A 59-year-old man presented to his physician with a 10-lb weight loss and chronic night sweats for the past couple of months. He complained of intermittent fatigue but is able to maintain his current exercise regimen.

H & P
  • PE: enlarged bilateral axillary lymph nodes; enlarged spleen, palpable
  • CBC: WBC, 12 X 104 /L; platelets,103 X 109 /L; Hgb, 9.2 g/dL
  • LDH: 400 U/L
Biopsy
  • Excisional biopsy showed grade 2 follicular lymphoma; CD20+, CD10+
  • Bone marrow biopsy; 60% involved
Imaging
  • PET/CT showed widespread lymphadenopathy and a large splenic mass measuring 10 cm
  • Diagnosis: Stage IV follicular lymphoma
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Any other amateur oncologists want to give this a shot?

No information on his previous treatment, so I went with Bendamustine + Rituxan.

I was wrong, as you will see if you watch the video. I won't tell you what the actual treatment was.

The lesson here? I'm not a doctor. I make that clear on the blog, and I always remind anyone who emails or tweets me for advice. The best thing you can do when you have concerns is to talk to yur doctor.

I could still deliver a baby, though.




1 comment:

Warrior woman said...

I was diagnosed 3/2017 at age 56. I was very sick, lost 20 or so pounds. I had all the symptoms, but no night sweats. My oncologist in Indiana prescribed bendamustine/ retuximab. I went to MD Anderson and my dr there prescribed xxxxxx and xxxxx. I’m using x’s because it’s the same as this patient and I didn’t want to ruin it in case you haven’t seen the video. It’s almost 32 months and I am still feeling great. I was in CR after the second treatment. I had 6 regular treatments and only 2 of the xxxx maintenance treatment that md Anderson recommended. I had figured if it comes back I’ll just deal with it then. I love staying up to date on all the great innovations that come along. And thank you Bob for really keeping it simple for us!