Kyle Jensen, Vanessa McDowell, Brianna Peterson, David Lee, Sam Olson, Jeff Murtha, Tim McCorry

The disease that our group decided to do our project on is leukemia. Leukemia is a group of cancerous cells that usually starts in bone marrow and results in a large number of abnormal white cells, also known as leukocytes. The leukocytes do not fully develop and this is known as blasts or leukemia cells. Some of the symptoms of leukemia are bleeding and bruising, feeling tired, fever, and having an increased risk of infections. Diagnosing leukemia includes having a bone marrow biopsy or having multiple blood tests. There has not been an exact cause of why a person might have leukemia. There are multiple types of leukemia that have different causes inherited and also non-inherited. Some of the risk factors of leukemia are smoking, radiation, certain chemicals, prior chemotherapy, and having Down syndrome. Also when people have a family history of leukemia they may be at a higher risk. There are four main types of leukemia. The first type is acute lymphoblastic leukemia, second is acute myeloid leukemia, next is chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and last includes chronic myeloid leukemia. All of these will be discussed a little later. When looking for treatment for leukemia some of the options include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, and bone marrow transplant. The success rate of the five year survival rate for adults is around 55%. For kids under 15 the survival rate is around 75% with the cancer unlikely to return when they become older in age. The first type of leukemia is acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This type of leukemia is found mainly in younger children and can also be found in adults, specifically over the age of 65. The main treatment consists of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The success rate for children is roughly 85%, while the success rate for older adults is only 50%. The next type of leukemia is chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This type of leukemia mostly affects adults over the age of 55. It has a slight chance of being found in young adults, while it is rarely found in children. Roughly 65% of people diagnosed are men. It is impossible to completely cure, however there are treatments that can be effective to help the survival rate. The five year survival rate is about 75%. The third main type of leukemia is acute myelogenous leukemia. This form of leukemia occurs mainly in adult males compared to that of women. It is also mainly found in men over women. The main form of treatment is by chemotherapy. The five year survival rate of this form of leukemia is around 40%. The final type of leukemia is chronic myelogenous leukemia. This form of cancer occurs primarily in adults. The main form of treatment is imatinib. In the United States doctors use a form called Gleevec this slows down the growing process of cancerous cells and decreases them back down to get rid of the cancer. Other drugs can be used to help with the treatment of this cancer. The five year survival rate is about 90%. The history of leukemia was first described in 1827 by Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau. Then in 1845 Rudolf Virchow gave a more complete description of what leukemia was. The way that he found out more about leukemia was that he was examining one of his patients and saw that they had an abnormal amount of white blood cells. He first called it leukamie in German combining the two Greek words of leukos (white) and haima (blood). Roughly ten years after Virchow’s findings another pathologist named Franz Ernst Christian Neurmann found in one of the deceased leukemia patient’s bone marrow was a slight dirty green yellow color compared to the normal red color that it was supposed to be. This allowed Neurmann to conclude that a problem in the bone marrow was responsible for why leukemia patients had a blood problem. By 1900 leukemia continued to be looked at and was decided that it was not a single disease but was considered more as a cancerous disease. In 1947 another pathologist from Boston named Sidney Farber believed that aminopterin, an enzyme inhibitor used in chemotherapy, could be a cure for leukemia patients. Unfortunately the children that were tested did not get completely cured but there was improvement in the children’s bone marrow. This then led to further experiments on trying to find a cure. Then in 1962, researchers Emil Freireich and Emil Frei used combination chemotherapy to try and find a cure. The tests were successful and patients began to live long after getting the treatment. Another interesting fact is that according to Susan Sontag, leukemia was romanticized in 20th century fiction, portrayed as a joy ending, clean disease who’s innocent victims die young or at the wrong time. The 1970 romance novel called Love Story gives an example of the romanticism of leukemia. There are consistently hundreds of clinical trials going on for effective treatments, better ways of treating the disease, improving the quality of life for patients that go under procedures, or appropriate care after cures or in remission. There are two main types of leukemia research. They consist of translational and basic research. Translational research studies are done by giving new drugs to people directly to see how it effects them. While on the other hand basic research is watching how DNA changes as the leukemia changes as the disease progresses. The most recent type of research that is being worked on is gene therapy. The way this is worked is that modified T cells attack the cancerous cells to decrease the size of the cells or rid them all together. Another method that has just started is identifying stem cells that may cause different types of leukemia and attempt to get rid of them before they become too serious. A method for children’s research is using monoclonal antibody treatments. These are proteins that are made to target certain dangerous cells and prevent them from getting any larger and curing the disease. Monoclonal antibody treatment has been used on adults more than it has on kids recently. Also immunotherapy has been used in children as a way to boost their immune system even when other methods might not be working. All in all there has been roughly 5.4 billion dollars spent on leukemia research each year in the US. The results for the research done for leukemia has been staggering. In 2013, three out of five subjects for gene therapy were found to be in remission for 5 months to 2 years. This may not seem like a lot, but for this being a brand new form of treatment this is staggering and this could lead to a safer form of treatment in the next few years. Everything that has been researched and is being researched will no doubt change the way that leukemia is cured and the way other cancers can be cured. As technology advances more processes will be coming out on how to allow more people to survive and not have to suffer their life with cancer. The monoclonal antibodies have seen a high success rate in people that have been able to use them. And although they have not been used in children a lot they have been successful and highly successful in adults. Leukemia for the most part is pretty survivable in children and middle aged men and women. The average five year survival rate of leukemia is roughly 65 to 70% with the proper treatment. Research continues to grow throughout the last few years and will continue to grow to allow even more people to be cured and survived. The results have been high so far with the new research that has been done and we expect them to continue to grow even more.

Bibliography and Questions 1. What is translational research? 2. Where is leukemia found/ where does it usually start? 3. Name some of the symptoms of leukemia. 4. Roughly how much money is spent on leukemia research per year?

1. Giving new drugs to people and seeing how they react to them. 2. Bone marrow. 3. Bleeding and bruising, feeling tired, fever, and having an increased risk of infections 4. 5.4 billion dollars.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/leukemia-acutemyeloidaml/detailedguide/leukemia-acute-myeloid-myelogenous-new-research\ http://www.cancer.org/cancer/leukemiainchildren/detailedguide/childhood-leukemia-new-research http://leukemiahealth.weebly.com/background-information.html http://rebeccanelson.com/leukemia/history.html http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142595.php
http://www.news-medical.net/?tag=/Leukemia