What should you know about HIV and Hodgkin lymphoma?

Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer of lymphatic tissue. In a person living with HIV, the oncology and HIV teams usually review the diagnosis together, including blood results, HIV treatment, immune measurements, infections, and other medicines.

Symptoms such as swollen lymph nodes, fever, weight loss, or night sweats can have several causes. Night sweats should be assessed in context rather than treated as proof of lymphoma. A PET-CT scan and tissue testing may help define where disease is present and guide treatment.

Share every prescription, supplement, and recent infection with both teams. Do not stop HIV medicines without clinical advice. Before treatment, ask how chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, or a transplant plan may interact with your current medicines and immune status.

Keep appointments for blood tests and scans, and follow instructions about infection precautions. Report new symptoms early; treatment plans can be adjusted when clinicians know about fever, diarrhoea, mouth sores, or reduced appetite promptly.

Call your treatment team urgently for fever, shaking chills, breathlessness, confusion, severe diarrhoea, inability to drink, or rapidly worsening weakness. Emergency care is appropriate for severe breathing difficulty, collapse, or new neurological symptoms. HIV and cancer treatment can both change infection risk, so do not wait for a routine visit when these symptoms appear.

Ask which team coordinates your care, how HIV medicines fit with the lymphoma plan, which infections need prevention, what monitoring is needed, and who to call outside clinic hours.