Pregnancy and treatment

[Dawson21]

A young friend (age 29) has just been hospitalised with breathing difficulties which they discover is being caused by a mass around her heart. They first thought it to be CLL but now believe this is Lymphoma and are awaiting results of the biopsy and scans tomorrow. The added complication is that she is 3 months pregnant. Her parents are distraught as you might imagine and fear that treatment would not help in this situation. Are there any issues with treatment whilst pregnant in terms of effectiveness of the drugs or the impact on the baby? It's a real watch and wait issue for the parents - we are trying to give them reassurance. Any thoughts or experience?

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

It's very, very difficult to be able to make any worthwhile helpful response to your question, sorry, plus it doesn't help that you have posted unlocked. The specific difficulties in providing a helpful answer are that we have no idea of what lymphoma is involved or what treatments might be considered, let alone knowledge beyond CLL for all but very few of us, I expect. Radiotherapy might well be a good solution, but that assumes this lymphoma is sufficiently sensitive to radiation (CLL/SLL most definitely is) and that the mass can be targeted without impacting the heart.

I would presume that traditional chemo would be out of the question, but targeted therapies might be acceptable. The difficulty in asking a CLL support community, is that with a median age of diagnosis of around 70, then typically 5 or so years on average before treatment might be required, the number of cases where pregnancy might happen during treatment is very very low. Even with targeted therapies, the standard advice is to take steps to avoid pregnancy, further reducing the number of case studies from which useful information can be gleaned.

Sorry,

Neil

[Jm954 Administrator]

I'm so sorry that your young friend is going through this.

This lymphoma sounds like a mediastinal tumour ( may be a thymoma) which commonly causes stridor - a particular type of shortness of breath. The lymphoma may be Hodgkin or non Hodgkin or even a T cell lymphoma.

Speculation is unhelpful until the type of lymphoma is known from a biopsy and then her doctors are the best placed to say in this very sad situation.

Please let us know what the outcome is, sending best wishes for her

Jackie

[PTAer]

Hi. Until they know what type of lymphoma they're dealing with it's very difficult to comment on treatment options. A friend of mine had Hodgkins while pregnant and I know she had the standard treatment. I think the 1st round was given while pregnant but then she had to give birth early to continue treatment (baby was healthy). I can recommend another charity, Mummy's Star, who support mums with cancer in pregnancy. They will have lots of resources to help and many ppl who have walked this tricky path before.

[Dawson21]

Having been told it was end of life last Friday results back to confirm Hodgkins Lymphoma which is a relative relief. Treatable she is told.