Recurring Hodgkin's

Hi my name is Amanda I am 33 years old I have been dealing with Hodgkins for almost a year in half now. I was told oh this is the best kinda cancer to have if you to have cancer it is so easily treatable well I can assure them it is not for me and so many others that I have read their stories on here. My question is I was told by my oncologist that the next step for me is a stem cell transplant all I have had is ABVD no radiation. I just feel like there has to be something else they could to do before the stem cell transplant. Is there anyone else out there that has gone through this and can give me some advise.

I can't really tell you about other options because when I relapsed, they did do an autologous stem cell transplant on me. It went very well and aside from a 5 week hospital stay, it seems that it was the right course of action. I have been in remission for over 3 years since the transplant and all of the side effects I have are from the chemo and radiation that I went through, not from the stem cell transplant. I don't know if this makes you feel any better but I hope it will. Good luck with your treatment, you can get through it too.

Patients who fail to achieve an initial complete remission or disappearance of their cancer following a complete course of chemotherapy treatment are referred to as "induction failures.” In the 1980's, many clinical centers around the world began routinely utilizing high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation as initial treatment of induction failures because the cure rates were higher.  If the HD is relapsed, which means you did go into remission for some period of time but now it is back, then you should have the option of chemotherapy +/- RT or SCT.  Even in these cases there is some evidence of a higher survival rate with SCT so its often recommended even in relapsed disease.