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Like a screwdriver, non-electric.

We’ve been watching a lot of House lately, and as it’s the first medical drama I’ve paid attention to, I’ve been left with a lot of questions about medical conditions, in particular, something frequently referred to as “Lymphoma, non-Hodgkins.”

They always say it that way: first by specifying the disease, then by eliminating one of the variants of it. This started to drive me crazy. It’s like saying, “I’ll have a Pepsi, non-diet,” or “Where is the non-iced coffee?” Such phrases might come up, but they’d have to be found in rare circumstances, and these people say “lymphoma, non-Hodgkins” all the time.

So I looked it up.

There are two general types of lymphomas: “Hodgkin’s Disease” (named after Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, who first recognized it in 1832) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The lymphatic tissue in Hodgkin’s disease contains specific cells – Reed-Sternberg cells – that are not found in any other cancerous lymphomas or cancers. These cells distinguish Hodgkin’s disease (HD) from non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHLs).

This is a prime example of the sort of thing that annoys me about language: it evolves, and yet people are resistant to change. “Hodgkin’s Disease” is a type of lymphoma. “Regular” lymphoma is not a non-type of Hodgkin’s Disease.

The worldwide medical community should stop caring about Thomas Hodgkin’s reputation and just start referring to them as Lymphoma Type 1 and Lymphoma Type 2.

There, I fixed it. Moving on.

Comments [1]

12 October 2006, 10:14

  1. That wouldn’t work.

    http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_mat_detail.adp?item_id=381980&sort_order=2&cat_id=

    (no links allowed, huh?)

    “Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a group of diseases and not just one type…Nearly 90% of non-Hodgkin lymphomas are B-cell lymphomas. There are 14 different types of B-cell lymphomas…About 12% of people with lymphoma have Hodgkin lymphoma. The rest have non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

    There are two kinds of blood cancers, or lymphomas: the kind with Reed-Sternberg cells and the kind without. Of the kind without, there are at least 14 different types. The presence or absence of the Reed-Sternberg cells seems to be the first diagnostic factor in determining the kind of blood cancer one has. Only once the absence has been established, can you drill down figure out which variety of lymphoma a person has within the no Reed-Sternberg cells category.

    This totally calls for a tree diagram.

    I (heart) House. It rocks.

    PS: the size of your comment input window seems to indicate a desire on your part to not get lengthy replies.


    — jane    13 October 2006, 09:27    #