Many people think of leukemia as a death sentence. Thousands of adults and children are diagnosed with this disease every single year and many of them are survivors thanks to the growth and advancement of the medical field.
Leukemia is cancer of the blood cells. It starts in the bone marrow, the soft tissue inside most bones. Bone marrow is where blood cells are made.When you have leukemia, the bone marrow starts to make a lot of abnormal white blood cells, called leukemia cells. They don't work as the normal white blood cells should, they grow much quicker than normal cells, and they don't stop growing when they should. Over a period of time, leukemia cells will crowd out the normal blood cells. This can lead to serious health problems such as anemia (a condition that develops when your blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin), bleeding, and infections. Leukemia cells can also spread to other organs and cause swelling or pain. There are many different types of leukemia including acute or chronic. The first type, acute leukemia gets worse quickly and may make you feel sick instantly whereas chronic leukemia gets worse and worse over time and may not cause symptoms for years. Other than being acute or chronic, leukemia can also be either lymphocytic or myelogenous. The four main types of leukemia are, Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML), and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). The most common type of leukemia in children is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Lymphocytic leukemia affects white blood cells called lymphocytes. Myelogenous leukemia affects white blood cells called myelocytes.
Experts are not exactly sure what causes leukemia, but there are definitely some potential risk factors. Some risk factors include, having some type of chemotherapy to treat another cancer, having down syndrome, family history of leukemia, and if you were exposed to chemicals, or large amounts of radiation.
There are endless symptoms that may cause leukemia. Unintentional weight loss/ loss of appetite, feeling lethargic or fatigued, pale skin, frequent infections, swollen lymph nodes or neck, swelling or discomfort in the abdomen, bone or joint pain, bleeding or bruising easily, migraine headaches, loss of breath, coughing, seizures, abnormal vision, vomiting, rashes, fever and night sweats.
Several different types of test/ scans/ exams can be run to determine in you have leukemia. You can do a physical exam, blood tests, bone marrow biopsy (removes a small amount of bone and fluid from cells from inside the bone), bone marrow aspiration (removes only the bone marrow), lumbar puncture/ spinal tap (procedure to collect and look at the fluid surrounding the spinal cord and brain), lymph node biopsy (removes lymph node tissue to be looked at under a microscope for sign of infection of a disease).
Not only are there physical exams, blood tests, and bone marrow biopsies but there are also many other options to diagnose leukemia. Chest x-ray (picture of the chest that show your heart, lungs, airway, blood vessels, and lymph nodes), CT scan (uses x-rays to make detailed pictures of structures inside of the body). PET/ CT scan (an imaging test that uses radioactive substance called a tracer to look for disease in the body), MRI (test that uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wavelengths, ultrasound ( also called a sonography, uses sound waves to develop ultrasound images of what is going on inside the body), bone scan ( test to help find the cause of back pain). A bone scan can also be done to find damage to the bones, or cancer that has spread to the bones.
People with cancer have multiple treatment options. The choice of treatment mainly depends on your type of leukemia, your age, and whether or not the leukemia cells were found in the cerebrospinal (brain and spinal) fluid. Cancer patients with acute leukemia need to be treated immediately. The goal of treatment is to demolish any signs of leukemia in the body and make symptoms go away as quick as possible. This is called a remission. After people go into remission, more therapy may be given to prevent a relapse. This type of therapy is called consolidation therapy (maintenance therapy). Many people with acute leukemia can be cured. Chronic leukemia will usually control the disease and the symptoms of the patient. People may receive maintenance therapy to help keep the cancer in remission, but chronic leukemia can rarely be cured with chemotherapy. However, stem cell transplants are another treatment option that can help chronic leukemia patients fight for the cure.
Most patients with leukemia will go with the chemotherapy treatment option. Chemotherapy uses drugs to help destroy the leukemia cells. Depending on which type of cancer you have, you may receive one drug or a combination of two or more drugs. There are several ways chemotherapy can be done. Chemo can be done through the mouth (some of the drugs are pills that you can swallow), through an IV, catheter (a tube placed into a large vein in the upper chest), or injected into the cerebrospinal fluid. If you decide to treat the cancer by injecting the drugs into the cerebrospinal fluid, then you can do that by one of two ways. The first way is, the drugs can be directly injected into the cerebrospinal fluid. The second way is by putting a catheter under the scalp. The catheter is called an Ommaya Reservoir. This type of treatment is helpful if you want to avoid all of the pain that comes along with injections.
It is important to stay in good health while going through cancer treatments because you need to be able to maintain your weight, and eat enough protein to keep your strength up. This will help you feel better in general and let you have more energy.
Chemotherapy is often given in cycles, a period of treatment, followed by a period of rest. Side effects are based on what kind of drug you are given and how much of the drug. Chemo can affect many things that go on in your body. It can cause your blood cell levels to be low. This means you will be more prone to bruising, bleeding, and infections. It can also cause hair loss, poor appetite, vomiting, infertility, and weakness. Besides chemotherapy there is a wide variety of treatments. Some of them include, targeted therapy (targeted therapies use drugs that block the growth of leukemia cells), biological therapy (treatment that improves the body's natural defenses against the disease), radiation therapy (uses high-energy rays to kill leukemia cells), or a stem cell transplant (allows you to be treated with high doses of drugs, radiation, or even both). You can receive a stem cell transplant from yourself, a family member/ identical twin, or a donor. You'll need regular checkups after treatment for leukemia. Checkups help ensure that any changes in your health are recorded and treated if needed. Checkups may include a careful physical exam, blood tests, cytogenetics (checks the structure and function of cells, especially chromosomes), x-rays, bone marrow aspiration, or spinal tap. Doctors/ experts aren’t exactly sure what the direct cause of leukemia is. They also have not found a way to cure leukemia. Hopefully doctors and experts are able to find a cause and cure to leukemia in the near future.