When determining lymphoma statistics it is important to know the term lymphoma is so incredibly broad as to have lost most of its original meaning, which is, put simply, a cancer occurring in the lymphatic system, among the lymph nodes, and affecting lymphocytes.
There are at least five dozen categories of lymphoma, each of which represents one or more subtypes of this cancer, and each and every one of these cancers—at the molecular level, there may be hundreds, likely many more than that—is considered heterogeneous, meaning that each of them is as different in character, in presentation, in treatment responses, from each other as they are from any other cancer one can imagine.
This ever-expanding understanding of lymphoma may be confusing, but the more that we learn about the genome and the chromosomal make-up of every lymphoma, the better and more successful the treatments.
All that said, we can discuss lymphoma in terms of basic lymphoma statistics if we group all subtypes together under that Lymphoma banner.
Lymphoma Statistics: Incidence
In the United States each year, it is estimated that about 74,000 men and women (with a slight preference towards men) will receive a diagnosis of lymphoma. Furthermore, it is estimated that over 21,000 men and women will succumb to lymphoma annually as well.
While some lymphoma subtypes are known to affect primarily young people (such as Hodgkin's lymphoma), in general lymphoma strikes older people. In fact the median age at diagnosis for lymphoma in the US was 64, with three-fifths of all diagnoses striking people between the ages of 55 and 84.
Lymphoma Statistics: Mortality
The median age at death for lymphoma is 75. In fact, a full 33 percent of deaths are among people between the ages of 75 and 84.
As mentioned, the disease is more prevalent in men than women. In the US, the incidence of lymphoma is 27.1 cases per 100,000 men, and 19.1 cases per 100,000 women. Death from the disease is parsed out similarly in that there are 9.3 deaths for every 100,000 men and 5.9 per 100,000 women.
Lymphoma Statistics: Caution!
Because lymphoma is such a broad term encompassing so many different diseases, it would be erroneous for anyone to interpret these lymphoma statistics as being directly applicable to them or to their loves ones. In lymphomas, the important thing to know is the precise subtype diagnosis, and from there, it is often possible to find some lymphoma statistics related to that subtype that will no doubt be far more accurate than those presented here.
