According to the Mayo Clinic, a doctor may use the following procedures to help diagnose non-Hodgkin's lymphoma:
- Physical examination
- Blood and urine tests
- Imaging techniques
- Lymph node biopsy
- Bone marrow biopsy
Doctors classify non-Hodgkin's disease into about 30 types. Besides the differentiation between B cell and T cell types of the disease, classification is based on several other factors, including:
- Microscopic appearance
- Cellular genetic changes
- Cell size
- Staining patterns with specific antibody stains
- How the cancer cells group together
- How fast the cancer grows
Doctors also assign a stage (I through IV) to the disease, based on the number of tumors and how widely the tumors have spread.
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