PhD defence E.A.M. (Eline) Zijtregtop

Summary:

Hodgkin lymphoma is a type of lymph node cancer. It is the third most common cancer in children. Children with this disease are treated with chemotherapy and sometimes radiation therapy. Although survival rates are good, about 15% of children still get the disease back or the disease does not respond to treatment. In addition, the treatment has many side effects. That is why we investigated whether we can make this diagnosis better and faster with the help of new blood tests, including specific proteins in the blood. We also investigated whether we could better distinguish between children with lymph node swellings based on lymph node cancer and children with benign lymph node swellings. We also investigated whether proteins in the blood or in the lymph node tissue can predict if the disease is gone after treatment and whether the disease will stay away. We have compared all these new possibilities with the current standards. This research shows that some proteins that we can measure in blood, in particular TARC, play an important role in the development of Hodgkin lymphoma. TARC can therefore be helpful in making the diagnosis. TARC also predicts well whether the treatment is successful. Furthermore, we show that, with a certain combination of diagnostic tests, we can make a good distinction between benign and malignant lymph node swellings. Finally, we show that different proteins, which you can measure on lymph node tissue, can be helpful in determining if the the patient will have the disease back later in life.