Hodgkin’s Disease: Examination

A comprehensive clinical examination is the basis for selecting further diagnostic steps:

  • General physical examination – including blood pressure, pulse, body temperature, body weight, body height; furthermore:
    • Inspection (viewing).
      • Skin, mucous membranes, and sclerae (white part of the eye) [accompanying symptoms: night sweats; pruritus (itching); pallor; erythema nodosum (nodular erythema), localization: both extensor sides of the lower leg, on the knee and ankle joints; less commonly on the arms or buttocks]
      • Abdomen (abdomen)
        • Shape of the abdomen?
        • Skin color? Skin texture?
        • Efflorescences (skin changes)?
        • Pulsations? Bowel movements?
        • Visible vessels?
        • Scars? Hernias (fractures)?
    • Inspection and palpation (palpation) of lymph node stations (cervical, axillary, supraclavicular, inguinal, mediastinal, abdominal) [Leading symptom: painless lymphadenopathy (lymph node enlargement) (lymph nodes caked into packets] [Concomitant symptom: lymph node swelling after consumption of alcohol.]
    • Auscultation (listening) of the heart
    • Auscultation of the lungs [accompanying symptom: irritable cough].
    • Examination of the abdomen (belly)
      • Percussion (palpation) of the abdomen [hepatosplenomegaly (liver and spleen enlargement)?]
        • Meteorism: hypersonoric tapping sound.
        • Attenuation of tapping sound due to enlarged liver or spleen, tumor, urinary retention?
        • Hepatomegaly (liver enlargement) and/or splenomegaly (spleen enlargement): estimate liver and spleen size.
      • Palpation of abdomen with attempt to palpate liver and spleen (tenderness?, tapping pain?, coughing pain?, guarding?, hernial orifices?, renal bearing palpation?) [accompanying symptom: hepatosplenomegaly.]
  • If necessary, urological/nephrological examination [due topossible secondary disease: nephrotic syndrome – collective term for symptoms that occur in various diseases of the glomerulus (renal corpuscles); symptoms are: Proteinuria (increased excretion of protein in the urine) with a protein loss of more than 1 g/m²/body surface per day; Hypoproteinemia, peripheral edema (water retention) due to a hypalbuminemia of < 2.5 g/dl in serum, hyperlipoproteinemia (lipid metabolism disorder)]
  • Health check (as an additional follow-up measure).

Square brackets [ ] indicate possible pathological (pathological) physical findings.