Four strokes to find out the dangerous lymph nodes The lymphatic system is the human body’s “guard of honor”, the lymph nodes have three main functions, one is to generate lymphocytes, the second is to filter the lymphatic fluid, and the third is to play the role of immunity. Therefore, once there is an inflammatory reaction, such as acute and chronic lymphadenitis, lymph node tuberculosis, or lymph node reactive hyperplasia, it will lead to lymph node enlargement. This inflammatory lymph node enlargement is mostly harmless. However, if the lymph nodes are swollen due to tumor cell metastasis or lymphoma, you should be especially careful. Understanding the four characteristics of lymphoma can help to identify it. If you have painless and progressive lymph node enlargement with no known cause, it is important to pay attention to it. Less than one-third of lymphoma patients also have fever, but it is often a low fever of about 38 degrees Celsius, and most often occurs in the afternoon and evening, accompanied by night sweats, fatigue, recent weight loss and other systemic manifestations. The texture of lymphoma is not too hard or too soft, and it is similar to the toughness of the tip of the nose, with no adhesion and movable in the early stage. Inflammatory lymph nodes are soft in texture, and lymph nodes that are hard in texture may be metastasis of the tumor, and the position is relatively fixed and cannot be moved. If the ultrasound suggests that the enlarged lymph nodes are rounded, for example, 2.8 cm × 2.5 cm, beware of lymphoma. Inflammatory lymph node enlargement is mostly long, for example, 2.8 cm × 0.5 cm. If you suspect that the lymph node enlargement is not good in nature, you will be advised to do biopsy pathology, which is the most critical indication for the diagnosis of lymphoma. Strive for “one-trick pony” If unfortunately diagnosed with lymphoma, patients do not need to be overly worried and pessimistic. Lymphoma is one of the few malignant tumors that can be cured through drug treatment. Taking the most common diffuse large B-cell lymphoma as an example, the cure rate of early-stage patients has reached more than 50%. The treatment of lymphoma is a comprehensive treatment mainly based on chemotherapy, and the treatment measures include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, biological therapy, stem cell transplantation and so on. However, it should be emphasized that the treatment of lymphoma has its own specificity, just like the saying of “one move can control the enemy” in martial arts, only the patients who have achieved complete remission with the first line of treatment can have the hope of being cured, and if the first line of treatment only achieves partial remission or even is ineffective, their hope of being cured will be very slim. Therefore, it is crucial to choose an experienced specialized hospital and take a full course of treatment (6 to 8 courses of treatment, each course of 21 to 28 days), full dose (strictly according to the patient’s body surface area of the drug) of standardized treatment. The first two years after treatment is critical clinically, many lymphoma patients because of insufficient course of treatment and lead to the final results of unsatisfactory situation. Common reasons such as the patient’s poor physical condition, can not tolerate further treatment; the economy can not afford; patients and their families are not good compliance, do not trust the doctor and so on. In addition, after the end of lymphoma treatment, patients should not take it lightly and still need regular review. It is generally believed that the risk of recurrence is relatively high in the first two years after the end of treatment, at this time, the frequency of review should be higher, usually every three to four months, after two years, it can be reviewed once every half a year, and after five years, it can be changed to once every year, and adhere to the lifelong.