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Severe Carotid Artery Disease & Hodgkin's Disease

According to the Mayo Clinic, Hodgkin's disease—now known as Hodgkin's lymphoma—is a type of cancer that affects your lymphatic system. It originates in a type of white blood cell called a lymphocyte.
Lymphocytes are an important part of your immune system. One of the treatments for Hodgkin's disease is radiation therapy. Because people are living longer after treatment with radiation therapy, long-term side effects, such as severe carotid artery disease, present a serious potential problem for health care practitioners and patients alike.

  1. Hodgkin's Disease Treatment

    • The treatment you receive ultimately depends on your general state of health, whether or not you are pregnant and your age. You may receive chemotherapy drugs, which work through your blood stream to kill tumor cells. You may also receive a bone marrow or stem cell transplant if other treatments do not work. Radiation therapy may be the treatment of choice if your disease is localized in a specific area of your body. During radiation therapy, high energy X-rays are used to kill the cancer cells.

    Carotid Artery Disease

    • The carotid arteries are the two big arteries that supply the front part of the brain with oxygenated blood. When you feel your pulse on either side of your neck just under your jaw line, those are the carotid arteries pumping blood. Carotid artery disease occurs when there is a narrowing of the carotid arteries due to a build up of fatty substances or plaques in the arteries. This is called atherosclerosis and when it occurs in the carotid arteries, it increases the risk of stroke.

    Radiation Therapy and Severe Carotid Artery Disease

    • According to Dr. Ernest H. Rosenbaum, late effects of radiation therapy include stroke and carotid artery stenosis—the narrowing of the inside of the carotid artery caused by atherosclerosis. Carotid artery stenosis may or may not cause symptoms and increase the risk of stroke. In an article titled "Radiation-induced Carotid Artery Disease," the authors said such damage to artery walls has been demonstrated experimentally, noting that it occurs especially with irradiation of the neck.
      A separate article in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that the incidence of severe carotid artery disease among the relatively young patient population—a median age of 25—in the study is quite high and that it is likely that as more patients survive for 20 years or more after initial treatment, more of these kinds of cases will surface.

    Risk Factors

    • The article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the only patient risk factors associated with carotid artery disease in their study were high blood pressure and diabetes.

    Prevention of Severe Cartoid Artery Disease After Radiation

    • Most radiation-induced effects are directly related to the dose of radiation. Modern techniques use lower doses of radiation, so this may minimize the long-term risks. The article in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests early and regular investigations to detect potentially dangerous developments of atherosclerosis before they develop into dangerous events like strokes. This is especially true in at-risk groups of patients, so if you are identified as being at risk, your doctor may discuss with you the possibility of regular tests to minimize the risk.

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