All About Leukemia

Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is any one of several cancers of the immune system. There is no particular age at which non-Hodgkins lymphoma is most likely to occur. It can occur in people of all ages. The first symptoms are enlarged lymph nodes, elevated temperature, and sudden and unexplained weight loss.

Non-Hodgkins lymphoma can generally be divided into two types: aggressive, which means fast growing; and indolent, which means slow growing. In each type, there are many different variations – far too many to discuss in this limited space.

It begins when a lymphocyte mutates and becomes abnormal. This abnormal cell then starts dividing and making copies of itself. The new mutated cells divide again and again and again. With each division, the number doubles. The abnormal cells don’t die like normal cells, and they don’t protect the body from infections or other diseases like normal cells either. The buildup of extra cells forms a mass of tissue called a growth or a tumor.

The risk factors associated with developing this disease are a little sketchy. Researchers do know that weakened immune systems do make people more likely to develop the disease. They also know that certain infections can increase the risk of developing non-Hodgkins lymphoma; AIDS and hepatitis, for example. Age also creates a greater risk for developing non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Most new cases are diagnosed in people over the age of 60.

Researchers are looking into the possibility of obesity causing an increased risk getting this type of cancer, and they are also looking into how exposure to certain herbicides and other chemicals might contribute to the risk for contracting it.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Tasigna® (nilotinib) for the treatment of chronic and accelerated-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) for patients who are not able to tolerate or who have stopped responding to Gleevec® (imatinib).

Tasigna® is an agent that also targets the same protein as Gleevec but through a different mechanism. Some trials have indicated that Tasigna is more potent than Gleevec; however, further study is necessary for this determination.

CML is a cancer that originates in the white blood cells, affecting approximately 4,600 people annually in the U.S. In the case of CML, large numbers of young WBCs do not mature, resulting in an excess accumulation of these cells.

Tasigna® is manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

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Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), a type of blood cancer, causes damage and possible death by crowding the normal blood cells in the bone marrow and will eventually spread to other organs. ALL is commonly found in children but also found in adults and if left untreated can be fatal. The risk of getting ALL goes up in people age 45 and will go up again as you grow older. There are over 5000 people expected to be diagnosed with ALL in year 2008.

Effects of ALL

There is short term and long term effects living with ALL and it will be emotionally, physically and financially straining them. While living with ALL, your abnormal blood cells crowd around other cells in the bone marrow. This prevents your body from producing red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets causing many problems in their future such as anemia, and more infection.

Other acute lymphocytic leukemia symptoms are:

* Swollen lymph nodes

* Dyspnea

* Bleed more easily

* Enlarged liver or spleen

Diagnosing ALL

There are many tests that doctors use to diagnose ALL and the tests they use will depend on other factors such as your age, the severity of the symptoms. The tests given are blood work, a bone marrow biopsy, cytogenetics, imaging tests and more.

Treatment

Chemotherapy is the primary treatment for this disease varying in length and number of drugs involved. Clinical trials are another often used option that allow doctors to continue to learn about and improve treatments for ALL.

If you are experiencing some or all of acute lymphocyctic leukemia symptoms then you need the right legal guidance. Please contact a medical attorney today. There are experienced and trustworthy people who can give you the legal support you deserve.

Leukemia is cancer of your body’s blood-forming tissues, including your bone marrow and lymphatic system. The 3 main forms of the disease are;

1. Acute Leukemia which is a malignant proliferation of white blood cell blasts in bone marrow or lymph tissue.
2. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia also known as granulocytic leukemia.
3. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia which is common in the elderly and accounts for about 25% of all new leukemia cases.

Acute leukemia accounts for about 20% of leukemias, it’s most common forms are:
1. Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL)
2. Acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML)
3. Acute monoblastic leukemia ( Schilling’s type )

Incidence of Acute Leukemia
Leukemia can occur at any age, acute forms of leukemia can occur in children and young adults and in fact in this age group it is the most common form of cancer. It is more common in females than in males, in whites ( especially those of Jewish extraction ) and in urban and industrialized populations.

Risk Factors
Several congenital conditions may increase the risk of leukemia; the most common is probably Down syndrome, which is associated with a 10 to 18 fold increase in the risk of AML.

In general, nonidentical twins and other siblings of children with leukemia have two to four times the average risk of developing the disease. Also, children who have received prior radiation or chemotherapy for other types of cancer have a higher risk of contracting leukemia.

Signs and Symptoms
Signs of acute leukemia may include; high fever, abnormal bleeding, easy bruising and prolonged menses. Sometimes the onset of symptoms is more gradual with low grade fever, weakness, chills, recurrent infections or lassitude, lasting for days or months before visual symptoms occur.

In addition, all AML, ALL and Schilling’s type leukemias may cause anemia, fatigue, dyspnea, palpitations and abdominal or bone pain. Specific AML symptoms include, local infections such as laryngitis, joint pain and abdominal fullness. Specific ALL symptoms include, night sweats, anorexia, weight loss and shortness of breath.

Leukemia that has spread to the brain may produce central nervous system effects, such as headaches, seizures, weakness, blurred vision, balance difficulties, or vomiting. Leukemia cells may spread to the gums, causing swelling, pain, and bleeding.

Causes of Leukemia
Current research points to a combination of viruses, genetic factors, and exposure to toxic chemicals and radiation.

Treatment
Medically leukemia is treated mainly with chemotherapy, although radiotherapy and biological therapy can be used in certain subtypes of leukemia.

Nutritional supplements offer help support the healthy function of the immune system, and in particular, the white blood cells in leukemia patients. In addition, some nutritional supplements are able to kill leukemia cells. Interestingly a number of people have experienced considerable benefit from the use of Lifewave acupuncture patches.

Prognosis for Acute Leukemia
Untreated, acute leukemia is usually fatal, often because of complications that result from leukemic cells infiltrating into the bone marrow or vital body organs.

With treatment prognosis varies, survival rates in leukemia have risen dramatically in the last 40 years with improvements in diagnosis and treatment. Children between 2 and 8 have the best survival rate (around 50%) but overall, treatment does induce remission in about 90% of cases.

Leukemia is a form of cancer that develops in the bone marrow of human beings. Leukemia is usually caused by an uncontrolled production of blood cells. Those blood cells that produce at astronomical rates are the white blood cells. There are two forms of leukemia; acute leukemia and chronic leukemia. Acute leukemia makes the bone marrow extremely crowded and prevents the bone marrow from producing healthy blood cells. This type of leukemia occurs mostly in children and long adults. In children, this is an extremely common cause of death and should be treated immediately. If not treated immediately, the malignant cells will spread to other tissues and organs throughout the body.

Chronic leukemia usually takes months or sometimes even years to develop in one’s body and progress to the state of acute leukemia. Chronic leukemia is most common to occur in older adults but there is the possibility of it occurring in any age group. Once detected, treatment isn’t necessarily needed immediately. Sometimes doctors will hold off on treatment to find the best way to handle the disease after they monitor its development.

There is no definitive way to prevent leukemia but avoiding such risk factors as smoking, avoiding exposure to chemicals and avoiding exposure to radiation might help prevent the development of leukemia.

Below are the symptoms of leukemia:

o Dizziness
o Nausea
o Swollen tonsils
o Fever, chills, night sweats and other flu-like symptoms
o Bone pain
o Joint pain
o Unintentional weight loss
o Paleness
o Weakness and fatigue
o Diarrhea
o Malaise
o Swollen or bleeding gums
o Frequent infection
o Enlarged liver and spleen
o Constant headaches

For each different type of leukemia, acute and chronic, there are different types of treatments. For acute leukemia patients are treated by induction chemotherapy. Induction chemotherapy is when doctors use different medicines to bring about new bone marrow remission. Treatments also include eliminating any remaining leukemia cells; which is called consolidation therapy. There is also preventative therapy. Preventative therapy is the process of preventing the cancer from spreading to the brain and the nervous system. If the patient is not responding to any of these treatments then doctors will recommend a bone marrow transplantation procedure. Many cases of acute leukemia can be cured and some of them might not be cured.

For chronic leukemia there is no definite cure. Most treatments are combined with chemotherapy and medicinal shots of prednisone and prednisolone. Despite the lack of a cure for chronic leukemia, these cases can be controlled for long periods of time without any setbacks.

There are four factors in determining how well the body will respond to leukemia treatment. Those four factors are the age of the patient, the percentages of leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow, the degree to which specific systems of the body are affected by the leukemia and if there are any chromosome abnormalities in the leukemia cells.

Leukemia patients can seek counseling and support groups through the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

Clinical trials for leukemia treatments are being done all over the US, and other countries as well. New methods are being developed, and researches lead to promising treatments in the future. Patients are of great help when they join the studies to have new treatments tested on them. Doctors get to learn more about cancer and how it is best managed and treated. More therapies and transplant procedures are available.

For those who are interested to take part in clinical trials may find information in the National Cancer Institute web site. The Cancer Information Service may also be contacted at 1-800-4-CANCER, and they can provide information about clinical trials.

Leukemia interferes with the body’s production of white blood cells. These cells are supposed to fight infections with viruses or bacteria, and when someone has leukemia, they are defective and their number is largely increased, but because they are not fulfilling their role any more, although their number can increase ten times the body’s defense system is seriously weakened and any infection can be very dangerous.

Unfortunately leukemia can affect young children too, and the number of child leukemia cases keeps increasing.
There are two types of leukemia – acute leukemia – a cancer that develops and evolves very fast and it affects all the white blood cells, and chronic leukemia – it develops slower and healthy white blood cells can still be found.

More than 95% of the child leukemia cases are acute leukemia. Acute leukemia can also be divided into acute acute myelogenous leukemia and lymphocytic leukemia acute myelogenous leukemia because there are two types of blood cells, and each type of leukemia affects a different kind of blood cells. More than half of the children with leukemia have acute lymphocytic leukemia.

The symptoms of acute leukemia start with fever, and continue with many infections, because the child is weak against any damaging foreign microorganisms.
When the disease advances the child becomes anemic and begins to have a pale color. He will always feel a sensation of weakness and fatigue which will prevent him from playing outdoors.
All leukemia patients, including children can be bruised very easy, and the often bleed for no reason. When bleeding occurs it cannot be stopped for a long time because leukemia affects the cells responsible for healing wounds.

If the illness is not discovered and it is left untreated it starts spreading through the body and it can reach the brain, affecting some of the senses and causing headaches.

In order to diagnose child leukemia the child must go through a series of special tests. If the result is positive then therapy must begin as soon as possible. First some new tests must be performed to determine what kind of therapy works best. In most cases chemotherapy is used because it has the highest survival rate. Chemotherapy is also accompanied by drugs.
The purpose of the therapy is to heal the bone marrow, the organ that produces the defective blood cells and to kill all the malfunctioning cells from the body. If the therapy is successful it must still be continued because the cancer can re-appear.
In some more severe cases a bone marrow transplant is needed.

The good news is that therapy is getting better and better and most of the children survive this illness, but the survival rate depends on how far the cancer has advanced and on what form of it the child has.

Leukemia is one of the most common types of cancer. It is a disease of the blood which, like very other cancer, is virtually incurable. Leukemia requires constant medication as well as a strictly reserve lifestyle. The cancer causes a certain kind of paleness to the person inflicted with the disease and also slowly but surely poisons the blood in its wake. The most difficult thing about having Leukemia is that the person who has it will hardly have a chance to have a normal life much more an active one. Those who have Leukemia are sensitive to physical strain as their blood rise wont be able to handle it. They are also prone to heart complications and the likes as the blood is the life stream of the body and it most definitely affects the heart.

A 14-year-old boy died Wednesday night in Seattle, hours after a Skagit County judge affirmed his right to reject treatment.

Dennis Lindberg, of Mount Vernon, died around 6 p.m. at Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle. As a Jehovah’s Witness, Lindberg refused blood transfusions in his fight against leukemia, against doctors’ advice that he needed the transfusions to survive.

In court Wednesday, Superior Court Judge John Meyer said that Lindberg, though in the eighth grade, had the right to make that decision.

Doctors at Children’s diagnosed Lindberg’s leukemia early this month and began giving him chemotherapy. Because such treatment destroys the body’s ability to make red blood cells, transfusions were necessary, doctors said.

Lindberg’s relatives were in disagreement about whether the boy should have been forced to get the transfusions. His aunt, who was his legal guardian and is also a Jehovah’s Witness, supported his decision to refuse them. Lindberg’s parents, who live in Idaho, disagreed with their son and his guardian.

His doctors at Children’s supported the boy’s decision, Meyer said, although one doctor told the judge earlier that the boy’s blood count was so low he could die overnight. The case came to court after officials at Children’s reported it to the state, which went to court to force the transfusion.

Ethics experts and Jehovah’s Witness officials said such a court case is unusual these days.

“With an adolescent, the situation is much more complex,” says Dr. Doug Diekema, an ethics consultant at the hospital. “We all know that 14-year-olds change their minds; they become adults, and they have completely different belief systems. And that makes you nervous.”

Unlike the situation with very young children, “with adolescents, I think we find ourselves much more profoundly conflicted.”

Dr. Benjamin Wilfond, the hospital’s director of pediatric bioethics, said medical providers, along with parents, try to balance competing needs. “You’re trying to respect their wishes, their evolving autonomy, balanced against wanting to protect them. Often, it’s difficult to achieve both under all circumstances.”

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People suffering from leukemia suffer from one of the deadliest types of blood cancers. It is specifically, a form of cancer of the white blood cells.

In modern-day practice, leukemia can also refer to malignancy in the blood or any cellular element in the bone marrow, wherein, the white blood cells multiply uncontrollably. This results to more white blood cells in the bloodstream. This type of blood cancer usually occurs in children with ages between 3 to 7 years while in adults, it occurs between ages 50 to 60 years old.

The specific cause of leukemia is unknown but inheritance plays a big role in becoming susceptible to this condition. People with leukemia experience bone pain, easy bleeding, pale skin and fatigue as well as abdominal pain, easy bruising and lymph gland swelling. Treatment of leukemia includes radiation therapy, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant.

Since blood cancers obviously involve the blood, it is more deadly and most dreaded. The infected blood can imminently spread to other parts of the body through the blood stream. Leukemia starts in the bone marrow – the spongy, soft material inside the bones where blood cells are produced from stem cells. As mentioned above, leukemia mostly affects the white blood cells which protect the body against infection. Then, cancer commences when abnormal white blood cells are created as a result when the development of stem cells into white blood cells goes uncontrollably wrong. With blood cancers, the abnormal white cells take over other types of blood cells, including the red blood cells (the ones that transport oxygen to the body tissues) and the platelets which make blood clotting possible. Therefore, leukemia is the intervention of the blood’s ability in carrying oxygen and in clotting.

Without the presence of leukemia, the white blood cells can readily function in fighting disease-producing germs or pathogens. However, when it becomes dysfunctional, it can weaken the patient’s immune system. The body won’t be able to fight even the simplest of infections. Pathogens can start attacking various other bodily cells. Since blood cancers destroy the immune system’s normal function, some patients can experience frequent infections ranging from infected tonsils, diarrhea or sores in the mouth to opportunistic infections and life-threatening pneumonia.

Studies are still ongoing as to determine the exact causes of leukemia. Medical experts think that exposure to ionizing radiations and hazardous chemicals can trigger the development of these blood cancers. Irrespective of the age, survival rate is very low. This enlists leukemia as one of the most fatal of all cancers.

Leukemia patients have a 43% survival rate of 5 years. It is also noted that leukemia is hereditary or it can be traced to the family’s history. However, this should not hinder you from living a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise and nutritious diet to prevent it. Diet should contain vegetable juices, lots of water, unrefined sea salt and foods that can heal like Aloe Vera, lemon, olive oil, green tea, tomato and more. For some people, fish, oranges and bananas can also help prevent blood cancers.