Leukemia

What Is Leukemia?

Leukemia is a blood cancer caused by a rise in the number of white blood cells in your body.

Those white blood cells crowd out the red blood cells and platelets that your body needs to be healthy. The extra white blood cells don’t work right.

Leukemia Symptoms

Different types of leukemia can cause different problems. You might not notice any signs in the early stages of some forms. When you do have symptoms, they may include:

• Weakness or fatigue
• Bruising or bleeding easily
• Fever or chills
• Infections that are severe or keep coming back
• Pain in your bones or joints
• Headaches
• Vomiting
• Seizures
• Weight loss
• Night sweats
• Shortness of breath
• Swollen lymph nodes or organs like your spleen

Leukemia Causes and Risk Factors

No one knows exactly what causes leukemia. People who have it have certain unusual chromosomes, but the chromosomes don’t cause leukemia.

You can’t prevent leukemia, but certain things may trigger it. You might have a higher risk if you:

• Smoke
• Are exposed to a lot of radiation or certain chemicals
• Had radiation therapy or chemotherapy to treat cancer
• Have a family history of leukemia
• Have a genetic disorder like Down syndrome

How does leukemia happen?

Blood has three types of cells: white blood cells that fight infection, red blood cells that carry oxygen, and platelets that help blood clot.

Every day, your bone marrow makes billions of new blood cells, and most of them are red cells. When you have leukemia, your body makes more white cells than it needs.

These leukemia cells can’t fight infection the way normal white blood cells do. And because there are so many of them, they start to affect the way your organs work. Over time, you may not have enough red blood cells to supply oxygen, enough platelets to clot your blood, or enough normal white blood cells to fight infection.

Leukemia classifications

Leukemia is grouped by how fast it develops and gets worse, and by which type of blood cell is involved.

The first group, how fast it develops, is divided into acute and chronic leukemia.

• Acute leukemia happens when most of the abnormal blood cells don’t mature and can’t carry out normal functions. It can get bad very fast.
• Chronic leukemia happens when there are some immature cells, but others are normal and can work the way they should. It gets bad more slowly than acute forms do.

Leukemia Diagnosis

Your doctor will need to check for signs of leukemia in your blood or bone marrow. They might do tests including:

• Blood tests. A complete blood count (CBC) looks at the number and maturity of different types of blood cells. A blood smear looks for unusual or immature cells.
• bone-marrow-aspiration-biopsy' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' >Bone marrow biopsy. This test involves marrow taken from your pelvic bone with a long needle. It can tell your doctor what kind of leukemia you have and how severe it is.
• Spinal tap. This involves fluid from your spinal cord. It can tell your doctor whether the leukemia has spread.
• Imaging tests. Things like CT, MRI, and PET scans can spot signs of leukemia.

Leukemia Treatments

The treatment you get depends on the type of leukemia you have, how far it’s spread, and how healthy you are. The main options are:

• Chemotherapy
• Radiation
• Biologic therapy
• Targeted therapy
• Stem cell transplant
• Surgery

Read more on: cancer, lymphoma