Are Night Sweats And Enlarged Lymph Nodes Suggestive Of Leukemia?

Posted on Thu, 28 Jul 2016

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 Answered on

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 Last reviewed on

Question : Hello I'm 23 years old and I work in a hospital as an ICU nurse. I have no significant medical history however I have been admitted into the hospital for the 2nd time within a month and a half for the same thing. The doctors have no idea what is going on with me. I have been having night sweats for months and I have noticed my left cervicl lymph node has been painless and enlarged ... and then a month and a half ago I started running low grade Temps, felt extremely run down and had severe body aches. This happened while I was working and went down to the ER. My heart rate was sustaining 150s and my labs showed a white count of 24,000. Other then the malaise and low grade Temps I had no specific symptoms. My heart rate was corrected with fluids and antibiotics. They tested me for various diseases and infections, drew blood cultures and everything resulted negative. I was put on broad spectrum antibiotics and a week later my white count returned to normal. However, about a week ago the same symptoms returned and I found my white count to once again be up to 19000. My symptoms are very non specific which Has made it difficult to diagnose what is going on with me. Should I be concerned about any myeloproliferative disorders, leukemia or lymphoma? With leukemia would your white count return to normal after antibiotics?

Answered by Dr. Deepak Sundriyal (47 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
hello dear. you require evaluation.

Detailed Answer:
Hello dear. I have gone through the details. First ofall, you must be relax, no need to afraid prior to the diagnosis. There may be a possibility of either tuberculosis or some chronic infection or a low grade lymphoma. You require following investigation
1. Peripheral smear of blood for morphology
2. Blood counts repeat with differential
3. LDH.
4. Lymph node biopsy
5 mantoux test and ESR
6. Chest xray
7 ultrasound of abdomen
8. Elisa for HIV
If required, a bone marrow biopsy can be done later on.
It may turn out to be a low grade lymphoma like chronic lymphocytic luekemia
However it may turn out to be tuberculosis as well.
Please revert with reports. Both conditions are treatable
Thanks and regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Yogesh D