What is Leukemia?
Leukemia is a blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow. Leukemia is when masses of underdeveloped cells also known as blasts build up. Leukemia symptoms include but are not limited to bleeding, bruising, fatigue, fever, and increased risk to infection. While the root cause of Leukemia is unknown it is predicted to be from genetic factors and environmental factors. Factors that are believed to be known to cause Leukemia are smoking, chemicals, prior chemotherapy, and ionizing radiation. People with previous family members having Leukemia are also at higher risk. There are 4 main types of Leukemia. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Leukemia is part of a broader grow of tumors that affect the bone marrow, blood, and lymphoid system.
Helpful Statistics
382,000 people are living with Leukemia or are in remission. 60,300 people are expected to be diagnosed with some form of Leukemia this year.
What Does Leukemia Do?
Leukemia is a form of cancer that affects the body’s blood-forming cells in the lymphatic system and bone marrow. Leukemia spreads at different rates for different people but it affects the production rate at which your white blood cells multiply. White blood cells are designed to multiply and fight infections to help protect your body from other diseases. Leukemia can make have a fever, fatigue, aching bones or joints, headache, skin rashes, swollen lymph nodes, unexplained weight loss, bleeding or swollen gums, an enlarged spleen or liver, feelings of abnormal fullness, slow healing cuts, nosebleeds, and frequent bruising. Leukemia can take long amounts of time to diagnose because its symptoms are similar to that of other diseases.
What are current treatments?
- Chemotherapy — this treatment uses chemicals to kill Leukemia cells. Depending on the situation doctors might use multiple different drugs or just one drug. It is also dependent on whether you are given one does or multiple doses. Chemotherapy can be given to you through a pill or directly into a vein.
- Targeted Therapy — targeted therapy is when doctors use medication to attack specific abnormalities within the Leukemia cells. Doctors will test Leukemia cells to see if targeted therapy would be useful ona case by case basis.
- Radiation Therapy — Radiation therapy is when doctors use X-Rays or other high energy beams to damage Leukemia cells and inhibit their ability to grow. Radiation Therapy might be used in one specific location or over your whole body. Radiation therapy is used in some cases before a bone marrow transplant.
- Bone Marrow Transplant — Bone Marrow transplants help you establish healthy stem cells in your bone marrow. Doctors replace the unhealthy Leukemia cells with healthy cells. For the transplant you either receive donor stem cells or your own stem cells can be used in some cases.
- Immunotherapy — Sometimes your body can’t attack Leukemia cells because they develop proteins that hide them. Immunotherapy helps inhibit that process of making those proteins so that your body can attack the Leukemia cells and defend you.
- Engineered Immune Cells — The treatment of using Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy to help defend your body. What happens is that doctors take T-cells that are used to fight germs and engineers them to attack Leukemia Cells and then infuse them back into your body.
- Clinical Trials — Clinical trials are experimental treatments that fight against Leukemia. The risks are uncertain in these trials.
