Section for lymphoma and medicine

The Lymphoma program consists of clinicians, pathologists and radiologists at the Hospital and researchers at the Cancer Institute with dedication for malignant lymphomas. Both an optimal care and treatment plan for our patients, clinical studies as well as translational and molecular/biological lymphoma research are in focus.

We have during the last decade had broad international cooperation with i.e. the Nordic Lymphoma Group and other European study groups like the German and British Lymphoma Groups, the European Bone Marrow Transplantation Group (EBMT) and European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). The Norwegian Radium Hospital is one of three European Hospitals which are members of the Lymphoma and Leukemia Molecular Profiling Project, headed by National Cancer Institute, US.

There are approximately 800 new cases of Malignant Lymphomas (ML) in Norway per year (incidence 11/100 000) with an increase of close to 18% during the last ten years. The malignancy consists of Hodgkin disease with approximately 80 new cases and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma with more than 700 cases yearly. For most cases the etiology is unknown, but bacteriae and viruses have been shown to be involved in the pathogenesis for some entities.

The Hospital had up till 1980 a National responsibility for the diagnosis and treatment of Hodgkin disease. Today, the Hospital is the Regional Centre for close to 50% of the Norwegian population with ML.

ML are in principle chemo- and radiosensitive diseases. The course of the disease and response to therapy varies, however, both between subentities of ML and between patients with the same entity. The treatment depends on a correct histopathological diagnosis. During the later years molecular diagnostic techniques are being used to an increasing extent.