Doran lends voice to awareness campaign against cancer he defeated
“I know that some day the disease might come back but I will be ready to fight it again,” said Chris when he helped launch Worldwide Lymphoma Awareness Day in Dublin yesterday.
Chris, who will celebrate his 25th birthday next month, is a fourth dan black belt and teacher of kick boxing. And it was probably his love of sport that helped save his life. When the Waterford singer was just 12 years of age, he developed a painless lump behind his nose and suffered from extreme tiredness.
His mother, Margaret, knew there must be something seriously wrong when he became too tired to practise the sport he loved and sought medical help.
The diagnosis wasnon-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and, thankfully, Chris responded well to bouts of chemotherapy.
There are 540 cases of lymphoma diagnosed in Ireland every year and around 260 people die from the disease.
Professor Rajnish Gupta, a consultant medical oncologist at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, warned that if left untreated some types of lymphoma could be fatal within months.
However, he also referred to the many advances made in the management of lymphoma, particularly in terms of treatment that improves outcome and long-term survival.
A recently discovered treatment for some of the more common types of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is chemotherapy together with a laboratory-produced antibody that not only directly attacks the cancer cells but also recruits the body’s immune system to attack the target.
Prof Gupta said that Rituximab was the world’s first licensed antibody treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and has been available on the Irish market since 1998.
Lymphoma is a general term for cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the body’s immune system. Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a rare form of lymphoma characterised by the presence of abnormal tumour cells known as Reed Sternberg cells, not usually present in other forms.
There are at least 30 different subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which are generally classified into two groups, depending on the rate the tumour is growing.
Symptoms of lymphoma include painless swelling in the neck, armpit or groin, night sweats, unexplained fever, weight loss and tiredness, coughs and breathlessness and persistent itching all over the body.
The only method foraccurate diagnosis of lymphoma is a biopsy of enlarged lymph nodes.
Lymphoma Support Ireland (LSI) is a support group set up to help patients with Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Volunteers are all people who have had lymphoma. The service is one to one and confidential.
Anyone concerned about lymphoma or any cancer can contact the Irish Cancer Society’s National Cancer Freephone at 1800 200 700 or by logging onto www.cancer.ie.
350,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with lymphoma every year and around 180,000 die from the disease.
Eight out of 10 lymphomas are non-Hodgkins’s Lymphoma, the fastest growing cancer after lung cancer and non-melanoma skin cancer.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
