Leukemia

Leukemia is something that we hear about a lot. I believe that people do not understand exactly what leukemia is and how dangerous it can be, I chose this topic to try to help them understand. In this paper I will explain what leukemia is and what treatments you can choose from to treat the cancer.

Leukemia is a type of cancer. Cancer is a group of more than 100 diseases that have two or more important things in common. One is that certain cells in the body become abnormal. Another is that the body keeps producing large numbers of these abnormal cells. Leukemia is cancer of the blood ce3lls. When leukemia develops the body produces large numbers of abnormal blood cells. In most types of leukemia, the abnormal blood cells and they do not function properly.(Cancer compass 10)

There are two major groups of leukemia they are grouped based on how fast they spread. Acute leukemia is a cancer that starts in the organs that makes blood, namely the bone marrow and the lymph system. Acute leukemia spreads very quickly. Chronic leukemia is when many white blood cells are made in the bone marrow. Depending on the type of white blood cell that is involved chronic leukemia can be classified as chronic lymphocytic leukemia or chronic myeloid leukemia. Chronic leukemia spreads slowly.( Longe,186)

There are many different types of treatment for leukemia the one that you receive depends on what stage the cancer is in and what kind of leukemia you have. Chemotherapy is one form of treatment, patients who have chemotherapy take one or more anti-cancer drugs by mouth or intravenously, through a tube in one of the veins. Chemotherapy is given in cycles a treatment period followed by a recovery period, then another treatment period and so on. The drug enters the blood stream and destroys leukemia cells throughout the body. However, they cannot reach the brain and spinal cord, because of a protective network of blood vessels that keep foreign substances from entering the central nervous system. In certain cases doctors need to inject the drug directly into the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. (Health a to z, 20)

Radiation is another type of treatment. Radiation therapy uses a special machine to deliver high energy rays that damage cancer cells and stop then from growing. These rays may be detected in the entire body, or they may be focused on certain area where leukemia cells are collecting.( Disease facts and statistics, 30)

Another option is Bone Marrow Transplantation. In many cases of acute leukemia and cml, doctors give high doses of chemotherapy and radiation, when indicated to destroy all of the patient's bone marrow, since it is not functioning correctly. Then they give the patient healthy bone marrow from the donor, whose tissue it the same or almost the same as theirs; ideally an identical twin or a sibling. They also might give bone marrow that was removed from the patient earlier and especially treated to remove any leukemia cells. Patients who have a bone marrow transplant bone marrow begins to produce enough white