Treatment delay

Hi Galquestions19e346, 

Thanks for getting in touch, and welcome to the online community  

My name is Ursula and I’m one of the cancer information nurse specialists on the Macmillan support line.  I see that you’ve joined a few of our forums.  I really hope you find them supportive and helpful.  

I am sorry to read of your daughter’s diagnosis of classical Hodgkin lymphoma, but pleased to hear that her recent interim PET scan has shown she has responded positively to treatment and is now in remission. It is understandable to now start thinking of her remaining treatments and end of treatment PET scan.

As we are independent of the NHS and do not have access to medical records, we are therefore unable to offer personalised advice, but can go through things in general terms which I hope you find helpful.

You have mentioned your daughter’s treatment was delayed by a week due to low neutrophils which is also referred to as neutropenia. Chemotherapy affects the body’s healthy cells as well as the lymphoma cells. When the neutrophil count is low, our immune system is weakened, making it harder to fight infection.  It is not uncommon for there to be delays in chemotherapy treatments, and it’s important not to see it as a setback. Throughout treatment, your daughter’s specialist team closely monitors her blood counts. When they are abnormal, the doctors will delay treatment until they have recovered. Patient safety is important during chemotherapy, and doctors do not want to risk continuing treatment that further weakens their immune system.  We would encourage you to speak with your daughter’s haematologist or haematology nurse specialist if she has one. They will be able to advise you on actions to support with that which might involve G-CSF injections which stimulate the bone marrow to make more blood cells. It can be used to increase white blood cells during chemotherapy treatment cycles.

Strategies are also being used to reduce the toxicity of treatment while maintaining high success rates. This often means de-escalating and removing specific drugs for example bleomycin when there has shown to be a positive response to treatment. The haematology team will be best placed to explain their reasons for doing so in more detail.

I see that Thehighlander and also latchbrook  have responded to you through the Hodgkin Lymphoma and cancer chat forums and I hope both their responses helped.

If you would like to chat over this further by giving our support line a call, we would be happy to hear from you. We often find we can explain our answers in a bit more detail over the phone, giving you the opportunity to ask more questions if needed.

I hope this has been helpful, but please don’t hesitate to get back in touch if you need any further information or support. 

Sending best wishes

Ursula (Cancer Information Nurse Specialist)

You can speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email.    

Ref:UH/JF