Cause celeb: Landale on lymphoma

"Incredibly some positive things have come out from my experience of having cancer"

High profile names can help raise awareness of a disease or condition, and bring it under the spotlight.

This video series talks to those in the public eye about their personal reasons for speaking out.

James Landale, the BBC News Channel chief political correspondent, talks about the realities of living with cancer - and even how some positives have come out of it.

James was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) at the end of last year. He has since undergone six cycles of chemotherapy and hopes to get back to work soon.

What is NHL?

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a disease in which cancerous cells are found in the lymph system.

SURVIVAL RATES 10,310 people were diagnosed with NHL in 2005 in the UK The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed aged 15-44 is 65% Survival rates are consistently higher in women than men

Based on how the cancer cells look under a microscope, lymphomas are divided into two types: Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.

Four out of five lymphomas are NHL. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma can occur in both adults and children and is treated differently than Hodgkin's disease.

Symptoms

The most common symptom of NHL is one or more painless swellings in the neck, armpit or groin. Each swelling is an enlarged lymph node.

Treatments

The main treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, which can be used alone or together depending on the type and location of the lymphoma. New treatment approaches include immunotherapy and bone marrow and transplantation.