Lymphoma is a very difficult disease, especially because the main cause of this medical condition is not known. Things get even more complicated when it comes to non- Hodgkin' s lymphoma. Besides the fact that the real cause of the disease is not known, the risk factors that exist are responsible only for a very small part of all the non- Hodgkin' s lymphoma cases. Furthermore, studies have shown that some people that are actually exposed to one or more of the risk factors of this type of lymphoma do not actually develop the disease.
So, as you can see, there are some risk factors when it comes to non Hodgkin' s lymphoma, but they are not always responsible for this disease. What a lymphoma patient must understand that he/ she has no fault whatsoever in the development of non Hodgkin' s lymphoma. The main factors of risk in this lymphoma case are:
1. infection is probably the most important risk factor when it comes to non Hodgkin' s disease; there are three most important viral infections that are linked to this type of cancer:
- Epstein-Barr virus- this is probably one of the most common viruses, that actually affects most of the people at some point during their lives; this virus causes glandular or infection, but on a short period of time; however, there are lymphoma cases that can be related with this virus; although the number of non Hodgkin' s lymphoma cases that have as starting ground this particular virus are small, they actually exist, so you could say that this virus is a risk factor in developing this type of lymphoma;
- HIV/ AIDS virus, this virus is one of the most highly linked viruses to non Hodgkin' s lymphoma; studies have shown that people that are infected with the HIV virus or suffer form AIDS are more likely to develop this form of cancer;
- HTLV- 1 virus- the relation of this virus with the development of non Hodgkin' s lymphoma is not a very close one; although this virus does actually increase the risk of developing this form of lymphoma, case of cancer that actually develop because of this virus are very rare;
Bacterial infection is not associate with non Hodgkin's lymphoma.
2. imunosuppression is the second most common risk factor when it comes to non Hodgkin' s lymphoma; this means that people that have a weak immune system are more at risk of developing this type of cancer;
