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Leukemia is a cancer of the blood-forming tissues in the body, including the lymphatic system and bone marrow. It starts developing when the DNA of the cell in the bone marrow mutates or changes, causing it to function abnormally.
Major symptoms may include frequent infections, weight loss and pale skin. Treatments can depend on an individual’s age and health as well as type of leukemia they have.
What is leukemia?
It's a cancer of the blood that can be characterized by intense growth of abnormal blood cells in the bone marrow. These are basically white blood cells that are in their developing, immature stage.
It's important to note that unlike other types of cancers that lead to tumor growth, leukemia doesn’t form a tumor and also doesn’t show up in X-rays and CT scans.
What are the different types of leukemia?
This type of cancer can be divided into four major types:
Acute lymphocytic: It's common in children, teenagers and young adults but can also affect adults of any age.
Acute myelogenous: It's common in adults, particularly in people who are over 65. AML can affect children, too.
Chronic lymphocytic: It's common in adults and older people. Symptoms of CLL may not appear for a few years.
Chronic myelogenous: It's also common in seniors but can affect adults of all age groups. CML rarely affects children.
Leukemia causes
This type of cancer begins when the DNA of a cell in the bone marrow mutates and stops developing or starts functioning abnormally.
The mutation causes abnormal cells to keep multiplying. As a result, all the cells developing from the mutated cells get the mutated DNA, leading to health concerns.
What are the major leukemia symptoms?
Symptoms typically depend on the type of leukemia. For example, if an individual has the chronic type, they may not experience any symptoms in the early years and stages. However, people who do experience symptoms might face:
- night sweats
- fever
- extreme fatigue
- rapid weight loss
- shortness of breath
- joint pain
- pale skin
- frequent infections
- swollen lymph nodes in the underarm, neck, stomach and groin
- enlarged liver
- bleeding gums and nosebleeds
- rashes
Leukemia treatment
Treatments depend on the patient's age, health and type of leukemia they have. Common treatment options include the following:
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is one of the most common treatments for this type of cancer. The procedure involves using chemicals to eliminate abnormal cells or stop them from multiplying. The chemicals can be given in the form of an injection, pill or shot under the skin.
Radiation therapy
It involves using strong beams of X-rays to eliminate mutant cells or prevent them from growing. A machine gives out radiation to specific spots in the body containing the cancer cells.
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy involves using certain drugs to improve the working of the immune system. This therapy helps the immune system to identify mutant cells, allowing it to produce more immune cells to work against them.
Hematopoietic cell transplant or bone marrow transplant
Bone marrow transplant is another common treatment for this cancer type. This treatment involves replacing the cancerous cells eliminated by chemotherapy with new hematopoietic cells.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy
This therapy involves taking out the body’s infection-fighting T-cells, transforming them to fight against cancerous cells and infusing them back into the body.
Targeted therapy
Targeted therapy involves using drugs to attack some specific areas of the cancer-causing cells. These therapies may help prevent cancer cells from multiplying by killing them directly or by cutting off the cells’ blood supply.
While anyone can develop this type of cancer at any age, studies suggest that several factors can increase the risk of developing it.
These include smoking, family history, previous cancer treatment, exposure to chemicals and certain genetic disorders like Down syndrome, neurofibromatosis, Schwachman-Diamond syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome.
