What is Leukemia? Symptoms, Causes, Classification, Types, Treatment

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. In simple terms, cancer is defined as the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. In leukemia the level of white blood cells increases.

Leukemia Patient
  • Save
Leukemia

Leukemia Symptoms

Dif­fer­ent types of leukemia can cause dif­fer­ent prob­lems. Symp­toms 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

How is it cause:-

Sci­en­tists don’t under­stand the exact cause of leukemia. It seems to devel­op from a com­bi­na­tion of genet­ic and envi­ron­men­tal factors.

How leukemia forms:-

In gen­er­al leukemia thought to occur when some blood cells acquire muta­tions in their DNA — the instruc­tions inside each cells that guide its action. Or oth­er changes in the cells that have yet to be ful­ly under­stood could con­tribute to leukemia.

Classification OF LEUKEMIA

On basis of speed of devel­op­ment they are two types:-

  1. Acute Leukemia - Acute leukemia is a fast-grow­ing leukemia that pro­gress­es quick­ly with­out treatment.
  2. Chron­ic Leukemia - Chron­ic leukemia is a slow-grow­ing leukemia.

On basis of type of cell is involved, is divid­ed into lym­pho­cyt­ic and myel­oge­nous leukemia.

  1. Lym­pho­cyt­ic - leukemia involves bone mar­row cells that become lym­pho­cytes, a kind of white blood cell.
  2. Myel­oge­nous - involves the mar­row cells that cre­ate red blood cells, platelets, and oth­er kinds of white blood cell.

Types of leukemia

  • Acute lym­pho­cyt­ic leukemia(ALL) —  This is the most com­mon form of Child­hood leukemia. It can spread to your lymph nodes and cen­tral ner­vous system.
  • Acute myel­oge­nous leukemia (AML) — This is the sec­ond most com­mon form of child­hood leukemia and one of the most com­mon forms for adults.
  • Chron­ic lym­pho­cyt­ic leukemia (CLL) — This is the oth­er most com­mon form of adult leukemia.
  • Chron­ic myel­oge­nous leukemia (CML) —  With this form, you might not have notice­able symp­toms. You might not be diag­nosed with it until you have a rou­tine blood test.

Treatment of Leukemia

  1. Watch­ful waiting
  2. Chemother­a­py
  3. Tar­get­ed therapy
  4. Bio­log­i­cal therapy
  5. Radi­a­tion therapy
  6. Stem cell transplant

If your spleen is enlarged your doc­tor may sug­gest surgery to remove it. Some­times a com­bi­na­tion of these treat­ment is used.

Leave a Comment

Share via
Copy link
Verified by MonsterInsights