Hollings Horizons Winter/Spring 2026 - Magazine - Page 17
Cutaneous
T-CELL
Lymphoma
Total skin electron beam therapy is a treatment that uses
a carefully calculated dosage of radiation to penetrate the
entire skin surface – but only 1 to 2 millimeters deep, so that
the cancerous T-cells are affected, but the radiation doesn’t
reach any internal organs.
This type of radiation therapy is typically only available at
academic medical centers, and Hollings is the only place in
South Carolina to offer it.
Only about 3,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed each year with
cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL).
In Feb. 2025, Rich Maxwell became one of those 3,000. It was a
hard blow for someone who had just retired in January and had plans
to enjoy travel, volunteer work and his family.
Suddenly, he had to come to terms not simply with a cancer
diagnosis, but with the fact that CTCL is considered incurable and
must be managed as a lifelong chronic condition.
Fortunately, Maxwell had access to a multidisciplinary clinic at the
Medical University of South Carolina, where dermatologists and
oncologists work together to manage this disease and provide
specialized treatments offered nowhere else in the state.
“I truly believe in this team because they’re going
after my disease and not being cautious about it.
They’re doing things that are appropriate for my
condition, but they’re not holding back either.”
Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma is a term for a group of cancers that
develop in the white blood cells, or lymphocytes, in the skin. It’s a
cancer that shows up in the skin, in the form of redness or a rash or as
raised, thick patches – but it’s not a skin cancer.
Because CTCL involves both the skin and the lymphocytes, patients
often see both a dermatologist and an oncologist.
Dermatology, for example, can address the skin symptoms –
and often, patients in the early stage of the disease only see a
dermatologist. Oncology can oversee the use of systemic treatments
to attack the disease in the lymphocytes. Radiation oncologists
sometimes get involved, too.
hollingscancercenter.musc.edu
Dealing with a cancer diagnosis
Possibly the hardest thing about his diagnosis was
understanding what medicine can, and cannot, do.
Maxwell had to dispense with the common understanding of
“remission.” Instead, the medical team helped him to think in
terms of “under clinical control.”
“The therapies, whether it’s oral medications, phototherapy,
radiation therapy, are all modalities to help me keep my
disease under clinical control,” he said. “It’s never going to be
cured, but it can be controlled. And that’s what I love about
the team; it’s that they know all the modalities that can help
do that. They’re talking to each other. They’re challenging
each other’s viewpoints so they can come up with the best
recommendations for me as the patient.”
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