Leukemia

Leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow and also the blood. There is a build up of blood cells that are not controlled. There are four types of leukemia:

Acute Myelogenous and also Acute Lymphocytic types are made up of cells which are not being functional. These cells will push out any cells which are in a normal state, and therefore cut back on cells forming that are normal, thus making the red blood cell counts anemic. When this happens the body has no way of fighting infections. This is known as neutropenia.



Chronic forms The cell that has the disease will go on and produce cells that are like normal ones. Red blood cell counts are lowered, resulting in anemia. The white cells, though almost normal in functioning, become high in count and go way up. As the white cells keep on rising and are left untreated, severe anemia results. Also in the chronic form, the cell that was responsible for starting the disease, produces too many lymphocytes which are not working. The lymphocytes take the place of normal cells in the bone marrow. Lymphocytes block the work of normal cells and break down the immune response that should happen. With the high number of leukemia cells pushing normal ones out of the way, again, anemia will result.

Risk factors

Anyone can come down with leukemia at any age. People that are over 60 are more prone it seems.

Some known risk factors are the following:

If you've had chemotherapy before for other lymphomas

Exposures to chemicals in the workplace that exceed the limits

Cigarette smoking

Symptoms

These symptoms may not mean that you have any form of this cancer. This is just a general overview:

Tiredness and no energy

Feeling really short of your breath

Paleness

Fevers and possible sweats during the night

Slow healing of cuts and a lot of bleeding as in hemophilia.

Body aches all over

Telltale sign showing low white cell counts in the blood. These are known as either neutrophils that are found in a blood test, or momcytes.

Diagnosing the problem

The first thing a doctor will do after looking at the whole picture of symptomatologies is to get a CBC, (a comple blood count) on you. A bone marrow test with bone marrow samples will be taken to confirm the diagnosis if the blood tests are showing suspicious results. So for the most part, the blood testing tells the whole picture with bone marrow samples to confirm.

Treatments

Treatments will vary depending upon which type of this cancer is present.

For a more thorough understanding of this subject and the treatments involved, listen to the 17 minute video from a doctor in hematology.

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