Splenic Marginal Zone Lymphoma
Splenic Marginal Zone Lymphoma (SMZL) is a cancer of the B-cells found in the spleen. The spleen helps the body’s immune system by removing old red blood cells and producing antibodies. This disease is very rare, accounting for less than 1% of all Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas, and is rarely found in children. Women are slightly more susceptible than men.
This disease is classified as a marginal zone cancer because the mutation occurs in the marginal zone, or outer compartment, of the affected B-cells.
Diagnosis and Staging
Patients usually have an enlarged spleen, which may cause discomfort or pain. Symptoms can be slow to develop. Patients may also have swollen, painless lymph nodes (though this is very rare) and experience fatigue.
Diagnosis may involve any of the following:
- Biopsy
- Chest X-ray
- PET scan
- CT scan
- Ultrasound
- Bone marrow biopsy
Staging, as with other lymphomas, depends on the spread of the disease. It is common for patients to have cancer in both the spleen and bone marrow, though progression into the lymph nodes themselves is rare and marks the advanced stages of the disease.
Treatment
There are various treatment options for SMZL:
- Splenectomy
- Surgical removal of the spleen. This can lead to full remission in some patients.
- Immunotherapy
- Rituxan is the most common form of treatment used for SMZL and is very effective. It is occasionally used in combination with chemotherapy.
- Radiation
- Irradiation of the spleen is sometimes necessary.
- Clinical Trials
- Cancer Patients have more options through clinical studies. Follow this link to learn more and find a clinical study opportunity near you.
- Radioimmunotherapy
- Zevalin shows promising results as a treatment for marginal zone lymphomas in clinical trials
Dive Deeper
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Information Pages:
More Articles
More Articles
Amazon.com is pleased to have the Lymphoma Information Network in the family of Amazon.com associates. We've agreed to ship items...
The question ought to be what are myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), since this is a group of similar blood and bone marrow diseases that...
Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC) is a very rare and aggressive skin cancer that usually develops when a person is in his or her 70s. It is...
At some point, the Seattle biotech company Cell Therapeutics Inc (CTI) should earn an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for utter and...
Site Beginnings
This site was started as Lymphoma Resource Page(s) in 1994. The site was designed to collect lymphoma...
Three papers appearing in the journal Blood and pointing towards a regulator-suppressor pill could offer hope to blood cancer...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a third so-called Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the investigational oral...
The US Food and Drug Administration today has approved an expanded use of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) in patients with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it has granted "Breakthrough Therapy Designation" for the investigational agent...
According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from the University of California, San...
Pharmacyclics has announced that the company has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for...
New research suggests that frontline radioimmunotherapy...
Gilead Sciences has announced results of the company's Phase II study of its investigational compound idelalisib, an oral inhibitor of...
