Leukemia

Leukemia is a type of cancer that is grown in the blood and then it is developed in the bone marrow. Bone marrow is the body tissue that is responsible for the production of blood cells. The bone marrow appears like a jelly and it is filled inside the bones. Three types of cells are formed by the bone marrow; red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes) and platelets (thrombocytes). The function of erythrocytes is to give the blood its red color.

These RBC's take up the oxygen and then transport it to the tissues. The function of leukocytes is to fight against infections. The growth of leukemia takes place in the leukocytes. In blood, the normal leukocytes undergo a normal mechanism by which they are matured to perform certain functions.

But in the case of leukemia, these leukocytes do not under go that mechanism and they just stay young and keep on multiplying quickly. There are three main kinds of white blood cells. Neutrophils whose function is to eat bacteria, lymphocytes whose function is to make substances that could be used to fight against bacteria and monocytes whose function is to destroy any type of foreign materials. Abnormality can occur in any kind of the leukocytes.

Blasts

There are some immature white blood cells in leukemia, they are called lymphoblasts and their short name is blasts. There are two types of blasts. One is normal blasts and the other is leukemic blasts. Among them, leukemic blasts are abnormal as they do not grow to become mature, so they do not function like mature white blood cells.
When there are a large number of leukemic cells in the bone marrow, strange things happen. These leukemic cells begin to take most of the place in the bone marrow so that platelets, normal white blood cells and red blood cells can not be produced.

Symptoms

There are several symptoms of the occurrence of large number of leukemic cells in the bone marrow. Some of them include thinning of blood and the patient will look pale. As enough oxygen can not be taken to the lungs, heart and muscles, the patient will start feeling tired. Unusual bruising and bleeding problems are resulted as blood platelets are crowed out in the bone marrow.

Any infection is occurred because blasts have taken the place of normal white blood cells known as neutrophils. If there will be no or less neutrophils, then bacteria will stay there and infections will be produced.

If the number of leukemic cells is increased too much then they can be spilled into the blood. As a result, the number of white blood cells increases in the blood. Once these leukemic cells are entered into the blood, they can go to any other parts of the body and grow there apart from bone marrow.

Types Of Leukemia

As there are three types of white blood cells namely lymphocytes, neutrophils and monocytes. So every type of white blood cells is associated with a particular type of leukemia. It is found that only one type of leukemia is found in a person. Lymphoblastic or lymphoid and myelogenous that is also known as myelocytic, myeloid, granulocytic or myeloblastic are the most common type of leukemia. There are other types of leukemia that are rarely found, they are myelomonocytic, erythroleukemia, monocytic, or progranulocytic.

Diagnosis

Leukemia can be diagnosed with the help of the examination of cells present in the bone marrow and by blood tests. Examination of cells in the bone marrow is very essential because it is observed that leukemia can be mixed up with any other diseases in its early stages. These diseases include other kinds of cancer, anemia that is resulting from any other causes, rheumatic conditions, mononucleosis, tonsillitis, mumps and meningitis.

Treatments and responses are different for every type of leukemia so it is very necessary to find out the type of leukemic cells. There are various ways to find out the type of leukemic cells. One way is the examination of the leukemic cells under the microscope and other ways include special tests to know about the complete cell chemistry and the chromosomes.

There are very rare cases in which the leukemic cells are found to be very young so that they can not be classified. These rare cases are called acute undifferentiated leukemia (AUL) and acute stem cell leukemia. If leukemic cells are found in the areas other than the bone marrow then there is a need to perform some other tests such as lumbar puncture and x-rays.

Treatment

Combination chemotherapy is used as the primary treatment for leukemia. In this method, two or more anticancer drugs are used for controlling the disease. There are some other treatments such as red cell and platelet transfusion, occasional surgery for highly unusual complications, radiation and antibiotic therapy. Bone marrow transplantation is also done in many forms of leukemia.