Spleen tumors - hemangioma and lymphoma
Hemangioma of the spleen is one of the most common benign tumors of the spleen, while lymphoma, on the contrary, is the most common malignant tumor of the spleen.
Hemangioma is a tumor of blood vessels, which is most often detected by chance, since they are rarely accompanied by pronounced symptoms. Spleen lymphoma is a disease in which the cells of the body's immune system are affected. It runs without symptoms and is detected by chance.
In fact, hemangioma is a benign proliferation of blood vessels and is most often located on the skin, but also occurs on internal organs, including the spleen. Depending on the structure, hemangiomas are most often divided into three types: capillary, cavernous and mixed. Capillary hemangiomas consist of small vessels of the capillary type. They are usually small in size, uniform, with clear, even contours.
Cavernous - from vascular cavities, they are often much larger than capillary hemangiomas in size, they have clear bumpy contours and a heterogeneous structure, and mixed ones combine both types of hemangiomas.
Lymphomas, in contrast to hemangiomas, are not so easy to divide into types, moreover, the stage of development of the lymphoma plays a more important role than its type. At the moment, modern doctors have managed to divide and describe more than 30 types of lymphomas, which greatly helps in the diagnosis and subsequent treatment, because the specific result of treatment and recovery of a person may depend on how accurately it is determined.
Most often, lymphomas are divided into Hodgkin's lymphomas and Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, predominantly found in people aged 50-60 years. In order to find out what type of lymphoma is found in a patient, it is required to take a biopsy of the spleen, according to the results of which it is already possible to determine the type of lymphoma, its stage, and also prescribe the necessary treatment.
In the diagnosis of hemangiomas of internal organs, ultrasound is most often used. Although hemangioma is one of the most common benign tumors of the spleen, in fact, they are quite rare and, in principle, do not have characteristic symptoms, which is why they are most often diagnosed by chance. In the case of the development and growth of such a tumor, pain may appear in the left hypochondrium with a return to the left shoulder.
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Hemangiomas of the spleen are more easily tolerated by children, and if they are formed in an adult, they can significantly disrupt its work and even lead to a dangerous infarction of the spleen. At the moment when the spleen lymphoma passes from its sluggish state to the stage of manifestation, certain symptoms begin to appear, which are most often associated with the fact that the spleen increases in size and begins to press on neighboring organs.
So, for example, there may be complaints of premature satiety when eating, complaints of pain in the left hypochondrium. Spleen lymphoma can also manifest itself through the following symptoms: severe sweating, weight loss, increased body temperature in the evening and at night, which cannot be brought down with antibiotics.
For the diagnosis of spleen lymphoma, biopsy, computed tomography, ultrasound, MRI, blood, bone marrow analysis, etc. In this case, a spleen biopsy is the main test for the necessary diagnosis of this malignant tumor.
In most cases, the treatment of hemangiomas is based on exceptional diagnosis, the study of tumors using ultrasound, X-ray methods and angiography. For benign tumors of the spleen, such as hemangioma, the necessary splenectomy is used, which leads to a cure, but in the case of lymphomas and other malignant tumors of the spleen, splenectomy can only be used in the early stages of the disease.
Unlike hemangiomas, the treatment of spleen lymphomas is much more complicated and the main role in it is played by the diagnosis of the disease, that is, it is necessary to find out which lymphoma was formed in the spleen, and at what stage it is. Based on the results obtained, the doctor prescribes the necessary treatment, which, thanks to the development of medicine, in 90% of cases leads to a complete cure.
If a patient is diagnosed with spleen lymphoma in a sluggish stage, without pronounced symptoms, then, most likely, the doctor will not take any emergency measures, and will carefully monitor the course of the disease, at the necessary time intervals, carrying out all the mandatory examinations and tests.
In the event of an exacerbation of symptoms, treatment will be started, which, depending on the severity of the disease, may include not only splenectomy, which will help stabilize the patient's health for a while (up to 5 years), but also chemotherapy and radiation.
Article author: Mochalov Pavel Alexandrovich | d. m. n. therapist
Education: Moscow Medical Institute. IM Sechenov, specialty - "General Medicine" in 1991, in 1993 "Occupational Diseases", in 1996 "Therapy".
