"small b cells suspicious of low grade lymphoma"--that is the test result of a lymph node needle biopsy last week. Now I'm wating for the oncology department to contact me.
Could Lyme cells mask as lymphoma, or late lyme lead to lymphoma?
I had the hospital also send a biopsy sample to Igenex to look for borrellia, but no results back yet.
Any info on this that you know of? Thanks.
[ 04-14-2012, 03:57 AM: Message edited by: tabbytamer ]
Posted by Summer3 (Member # 35286) on :
Wow, that must be so scary and stressful for you. I am also really worried about this. I have a lot of signs that cross between both TBI's and lymphoma and I have heard that borrelia is a risk factor for some forms of Lymphoma.
I went to a regular doctor first, and that's the first thing he mentioned and wanted to "rule out" but he only did blood work never an MRI, CT or biopsy. So I don't know if I should worry or not.
The only abnormal results I've ever had were a positive western blot, low CD57 and low lymphocytes. Sed-rate was normal when I first went in, I guess that's what he was going on, but I still worry.
I have seen a story from a LLMD where someone came in and was seeking help for supportive care. The person believed they had Lymphoma and was about to start chemo. The LLMD thought they might have had bartonella and treated them with it. It ended up that they didn't need chemo after bartonella treatment. I don't know if this is an extremely rare instance though.
I was able to find some info about lymphoma and Lyme here:
Lymphoadenopathy during lyme borreliosis is caused by spirochete migration-induced specific B cell activation.
Tunev SS, Hastey CJ, Hodzic E, Feng S, Barthold SW, Baumgarth N. SourceCenter for Comparative Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America.
Abstract
Lymphadenopathy is a hallmark of acute infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, a tick-borne spirochete and causative agent of Lyme borreliosis, but the underlying causes and the functional consequences of this lymph node enlargement have not been revealed. The present study demonstrates that extracellular, live spirochetes accumulate in the cortical areas of lymph nodes following infection of mice with either host-adapted, or tick-borne B. burgdorferi and that they, but not inactivated spirochetes, drive the lymphadenopathy. The ensuing lymph node response is characterized by strong, rapid extrafollicular B cell proliferation and differentiation to plasma cells, as assessed by immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry and ELISPOT analysis, while germinal center reactions were not consistently observed. The extrafollicular nature of this B cell response and its strongly IgM-skewed isotype profile bear the hallmarks of a T-independent response. The induced B cell response does appear, however, to be largely antigen-specific. Use of a cocktail of recombinant, in vivo-expressed B. burgdorferi-antigens revealed the robust induction of borrelia-specific antibody-secreting cells by ELISPOT. Furthermore, nearly a quarter of hybridomas generated from regional lymph nodes during acute infection showed reactivity against a small number of recombinant Borrelia-antigens. Finally, neither the quality nor the magnitude of the B cell responses was altered in mice lacking the Toll-like receptor adaptor molecule MyD88. Together, these findings suggest a novel evasion strategy for B. burgdorferi: subversion of the quality of a strongly induced, potentially protective borrelia-specific antibody response via B. burdorferi's accumulation in lymph nodes.
PMID:21637808[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] PMCID:PMC3102705
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any other links to similar info greatly appreciated, thanks.