All About Leukemia

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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Leukemia treatment is approached in several ways. The decision on which approach to take is affected by various factors such as age and health condition of the patient, stage of illness, and the type of leukemia.

Chemotherapy is used to kill cancer cells with anti-cancer drugs. This involves the injection of drugs to the patient either while confined in the hospital or as an out-patient. Often, the patient experiences nausea and fatigue that lasts up to several hours after a chemotherapy session.

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In the US, approximately 600 teens between ages 15 and 19 are diagnosed with cancer. The most common cancers in teens are Hodgkin’s disease, germ cell tumors, central-nervous system tumors, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, thyroid cancer, malignant melanoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It was shown that teeners and young adults that participate in pediatric clinical trials have better survival rates than those treated at adult centers.

For teen-agers, facing cancer is more challenging because they are aware of the fact that the disease may lead to death. Teeners become more depressed and lonely, plus the fact that teeners experience psychological challenges such as identity crisis, peer pressure, intimacy and fertility.

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Cancer support groups orgs for teens:
Teenage Cancer Trust
Group Loop
Teens Living with Cancer
Planet Cancer

Stem cells for transplant are sourced from the patient himself, or from a donor. Peripheral blood stem cells are collected through a process called apheresis, where the blood is taken from the donor through a needle in one arm, then is placed in a machine that separates the white blood cells from the red blood cells. Only the white blood cells are needed by the patient, so the red blood cells are returned to the donor. Daily injections of Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor helps the transplanted stem cells to move to the peripheral circulation.

Umbilical cord blood can be taken from a new born’s umbilical cord if the parents allow it. This is then frozen and stored for future use.

Once the patient decides to undergo a bone marrow transplant, preparations should be done to make sure that the operation will become a success. The patient should be healthy enough prior to the operation. Several tests will be done on the patient’s organs as a basis after the transplant, whether the organs are affected by the operation. The transplant will be taken care of a team of medical practitioners, before, during and after the procedure. They will follow a program developed for the patient, and it includes emotional and psychological support for the patient and the family. The team of practitioners also develops several scenarios and the steps to be taken if any trouble arises.

In Ayurveda, Leukemia is viewed as an imbalance which results from the failure of the digestive system. The food is not ingested and broken down properly. This creates a poisonous slime which circulates in the body and kills the healthy parts in it. To remedy this, the three elements of vata, pitta and kapha present in the body must be rebalanced. This can be done through a balanced diet. Eating raw fruit and vegetables purifies the toxins in the digestive system. Also, a relaxed lifestyle will do wonders, along with proper sleep and exercise. By doing these, the toxins will be removed, the balance restored and positive energies are freer to heal the body.

Both sides has its good and bad sides. Conventional treatments are tried and tested by different hospitals on may patients therefore there is a degree of certainty on methods and results. However there are many side-effects to these kinds of treatment that until now is not yet fully remedied. Alternative treatments are currently untestable and there are no guarantees to the effectivity of the methods. However these are mostly harmless and they make use of natural substances. A combination of methods may be used but make sure that one method doesn’t affect the other negatively. Know the side-effects of these and the precautionary measures you must take in order to get the best results.

As expected from the budding stem cell research facilities worldwide, new insight into the ways which cells function and react to environmental stimuli is giving more surprising results such as in the case of Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a highly progressive form of leukemia that defies most of the common treatments used for diseases of the blood. They have found clues to the mechanisms and are trying to find ways of applying the things learned from cancerous stem cells that have given light to a lot of new avenues to pursue such as why the form of leukemia resists common treatment regimens. Anti-bodies that were isolated allows a more targeted approach to AML that may hold better clues to the future of many AML sufferers the world over.

Trimming down on fat is an effective way of ensuring the success of bone marrow transplant according to researchers. It was found that fat accumulates in the bone marrow and inhibits their blood generating capabilities by a huge degree. Lessened blood production ability results in a higher failure rate of marrow transplants due to the lower blood production abilities of the body’s own blood factory. Lessening fat, which circulates all over he body and settles on organs including the bone marrow is a better way of managing and treating the disease that afflicts more people each year. Obesity is a growing problem in society and it complicates the treatment of many more diseases that relies heavily on the blood and the body’s regeneration abilities.