Leukemia Symptoms

Symptoms of leukemia :

Leukemia is a dreaded disease that attacks especially the children and young adults. It is a cancer, that falls in the blood cancer category and affects the blood and bone marrow. This cancer leads to abnormally high counts of white blood cells in the body.

There are basically four different types of leukemia. These are :

* Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

* Chronic myelogenous leukemia.

* Acute Lymphocytic leukemia.

* Acute Myeloid leukemia.

Child and adult leukemia are existant with acute lymphocytic leukemia being the most common type of leukemia among children.

Although the exact reasons for onset of leukemia are not clear, yet it is believed that exposure to harmful chemicals like – radioactive wastes, chemical wastes and exposure to other types of carcinogens like high tobacco and alcohol.Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy administered to cure other types of cancers in the past Some of the observable symptoms of leukemia are as follows:

* Fever, chills, night sweats

* Fatigue and tiredness, combined with general weakness

* Frequent and recurring infections, this is due to the malfunctioning of the white blood cells.

* Easy bruising and bleeding. Skin may be bruised or may bleed easily. This is attributed to the fact that platelet count of the blood is abnormally decreased due to the disease.

* Tender and swollen liver and lymph nodes near neck and the arm pit area.

* Anemia, breathing difficulties and discomfort in the abdomen are some other symptoms of leukemia.

Symptoms associated with leukemia, are also common symptoms of some common medical conditions, but if the symptoms persist even after proper medication, a doctor probably a cancer specialist should be consulted. A doctor specializing in cancer should be able to do the proper diagnosis of the disease after looking at the biopsy of the patient.

Cure, treatment strategies for leukemia :

Leukemia like other types of cancer follows some of the treatment methodologies. The important treatment strategies are :

* Chemotherapy – Chemotherapy is probably the primary treatment procedure for blood cancer. In this method of treatment, the patient is administered anticancer drugs intravenously.

* Radiation therapy - Radiation therapy involves administering the patient with high doses of radiation. Radiation therapy is usually alternated with chemotherapy.

* Bone marrow transplantation – Bone marrow transplantation is a surgical attempt to remove the leukemia affected bone marrow with a fresh marrow that is able to produce healthy and normal cells.Apart from the above described treatments, two new treatment methods have been found. These are

* Targeted therapy - Targeted therapy aims at blocking the production of leukemia or cancer cells without killing healthy cells. This is done by two classes of drugs. These are : Gleevic (Imatinib) and Myelotarg (Gemtuzamab ozogamicin)

* Immunotherapy - This is often referred to as the biological therapy, since this therapy uses body’s own immune cells to function against the abnormal cancer cells. This type of treatment also aims at reducing side effects of cancer treatments and improving the quality of life in cases, where its too late for a treatment attempt.