Billionaire Paul Allen, owner of Seattle’s Seahawks and Sounders along with the Portland Trail Blazers, announced Monday that his cancer has returned after nearly a decade in remission.
“I learned recently that the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that I was treated for in 2009 has returned. My team of doctors has begun treatment of the disease and I plan on fighting this aggressively,” Allen said in a statement.
“A lot has happened in medicine since I overcame this disease in 2009. My doctors are optimistic that I will see good results from the latest therapies, as am I.”
The Microsoft co-founder, 65, was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 1982. He reportedly received radiation therapy and a bone-marrow transplant to fight that cancer, which ultimately forced him to leave Microsoft in 1983.
In 2009, Allen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He underwent chemotherapy in that battle.
Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma are cancers that begin in white blood cells and impact the nervous system. According to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, differences between Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma include age (non-Hodgkin is far more likely to be diagnosed in patients 55 and older) and frequency (roughly 8,500 cases of Hodgkin lymphoma were diagnosed in 2016; 72,500 cases of non-Hodgkin were diagnosed that same year).
Per the CTCA, the survival rate beyond five years is at least 70 percent for both forms.
