Sound Sultan: Here’s all you need to know about Angioimmunoblastic T-cell Lymphoma that has no known cause
Cancer, the world’s leading cause of death, dealt another terrible blow to the Nigerian music and creative industry on Sunday, July 11, 2021.
It took away Nigeria’s multi-talented singer, rapper, actor and basketball player, Olanrewaju ‘Sound Sultan’ Fasasi.
A family statement says he died at 44 after a hard battle with Angioimmunoblastic T-cell Lymphoma (AITL), a rare Cancer that begins in infection-fighting cells of the immune system.
Reports first emerged in May 2021 that Sound Sultan was treating AITL in a hospital in the U.S. He died of the ailment less than two months later and has been buried in New York on Sunday, July 11, 2021.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Cancer accounted for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020. It killed more people than the much-dreaded coronavirus that forced the world into a lockdown in 2020. WHO estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least three million.
WHO says the most common types of Cancer are breast, lung, colon and rectum, prostate, skin (non-melanoma) and stomach. But AITL which claimed Sound Sultan’s life is a rare type.
Here’s what we know about it:
What is AITL?
It is a rare tumour of the lymphocyte, and lymphocytes are parts of White blood cells that help in fighting infections.
“When they become tumours and infiltrate parts of the body, especially the bone, they displace the normal ability to fight infection and also displace the cells that carry oxygen (Red blood cells) from the bone marrow,” a medical consultant with the Ondo State Ministry of Health who would not like to be mentioned, told Neusroom.
Although AITL was first reported in the medical literature in 1974, the term “angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma” was introduced in the Revised European and American Classification of Lymphoid Neoplasms in 1994
What are the causes?
The medical consultant says AITL’s causes remain unknown but it could be genetic.
“It has no particular cause. Science is still trying to detect the possible causes,” he said. “What we’ve known over the years is that there are predisposing factors that just link. Some say genetic factors, in a family where a member had had it previously, they could develop it.”
He added: “Some tumours have been attributed to smoking, certain infestation like parasite infestation, but for lymphoma, there’s no really known cause.”
According to WebMD, there are two main types of lymphoma – the Non-Hodgkin which is common among most people with lymphoma and the Hodgkin.
It is very treatable and is different from leukemia. Lymphoma starts in infection-fighting lymphocytes while leukemia starts in blood-forming cells inside bone marrow.
How deadly is AITL?
According to Tak Mak, a Canadian medical researcher and biochemist and Mary E. Saunders, Scientific Editor for the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research, Canada, lymphoma is an aggressive disease affecting adults and has a median survival rate of only about 18 months even with treatment.
Who is most at risk?
Some reports say AITL occurs slightly more often in men than women, and patients are usually aged 40-90 years.
