Let's talk about cancer of the blood cells [Often referred to as leukemia]

2 days ago, I lost a very dear friend (Name withheld) to acute leukemia. I still haven't recovered fully from this sudden loss. This friend happens to be my roommate back in our first year in college. After our first year in college, he abandoned school and left for Mauritius, where he took a course on business management. Fast forward to few years down the line, he later came back to Nigeria, to become my boss. I actually thought he could beat this deadly disease, but as fate may have it, he gave up the ghost after a brief struggle. So, i thought it'd be necessary to enlighten everyone on this disease which happens to be one of the deadliest type of cancer in our todays world.

Introduction

Leukemia, which is also known as cancer of the blood cells, happens to be one of the deadliest type of cancer in our world today, and has the tendency to spread throughout the body via blood circulation. Medically, leukemia is a cancerous condition in the blood which originates in the bone marrow and soft bone tissues. when any of the different types of leukemia affect the body, it leads to intense degradation of the bone marrow, and a lot more complications.

There are several negative effects this could possibly cause in the human body, but the most common effect is the growth of a tumor in the bone marrow, which is not an awesome place for a tumor to be located. I used the term "not awesome" because this location makes the treatment of leukemia almost impossible in most cases.

Why is leukemia considered one of the deadliest cancers

The function of the bone marrow is very important in the human body, especially in enhancing the activities of our different blood components. Our blood components includes the red, white blood cells and platelets. Firstly, it is important to know that our bone marrow produces billions of blood cells (red blood, white blood cells, platelets) everyday.

The red blood cells basically supplies oxygen in our body cells and tissues, while the white blood cells helps fight foreign invaders in the body, platelets are responsible for blood clothing. Like you can see, these activities are extremely important, any disruption to any of their activities can be life threatening. This is why leukemia is considered one of the most complicated diseases in our today's world, because the different types of leukemia affects the bone marrow, which in turn affects the efficiency of these different blood components.

So when an individual has leukemia, what it simply means is, the patient's bone marrow, produces more white blood cells than it normally needs. This mostly results in the production of excess abnormal white blood cells, popularly known as leukemia. Leukemia cells grow rapidly more than normal cells, and refuses to die when it should. This leads to some complications like anemia, infection, bleeding, etc.

As more of these leukemia cells grow and multiply, they tend to overcrowd and impede the growth and functions of other normal stem cells. Leukemia cells gaining more population, cannot fight infections like normal white blood cells. This goes on to affect the way other body organs function, because there won't be sufficient red blood cells to supply oxygen or white blood cells to fight foreign invaders or platelets for blood clothing.

Lets talk about acute leukemia

The different types of leukemia affects the bone marrow and causes it to eventually produce lots of abnormal white blood cells, which reproduces and overcrowd the normal white cells, thereby reducing their efficiency. As time goes on, the overcrowding of both the abnormal and normal white blood cells lead to conditions which eventually results in the spread of these dysfunctional cells around the body via circulation of blood and other body fluids.

This circulation is what differentiates the different leukemia types. The types of leukemia are grouped, based on their rate of spread and effects.

Acute leukemia

This is one of the most complex type of leukemia in our world today. This type of leukemia spreads vigorously fast. It gets very tricky at its early stage and can hardly be detected until some months or years after. It is known to be one of the most severe type of leukemia because even though it could take months or years to build up, it takes a matter of hours to terminate the patient's life. Acute leukemia spreads to other parts of the body, including the lymph nodes and other organs of the body. In this stage, most of the available treatment types becomes fruitless, and the red, white blood cells, platelets finds it hard to go about their normal duties.

Some major symptoms of leukemia

Even though leukemia is seen as one of the most life threatening diseases on earth, your life and that of your friends and family can be free from leukemia, only if you learn how to prevent this dreaded disease. Here are some symptoms of leukemia, including: excessive sweating mostly at night, long lasting fatigue and weakness, bone pain and tenderness, weight loss, enlargement of the liver or spleen, observed red spots on the skin, numerous infections, etc.

What are the causes of this deadly disease

Just like many other kinds of cancer, we are not sure what causes leukemia, however there are certain risk factors we can always look out for. In order to prevent this deadly disease, there are certain steps to follow, so as to lessen your chance of leukemia development. following these simple steps, lessens an individuals chance of developing leukemia.

• Avoid smoking

A major problem with smoking in our todays society, is the very fact that it is a major known risk factor for development of cancer of the blood. There are several toxic substances contained in cigarettes, which are carcinogenic. an example of this is benzene". Benzene is tagged as one of the living causes of leukemia and its exposure should be avoided, which is why it is often advised to avoid it, especially exposure via inhalation.

• The other types of cancers

Chemotherapy and radiation are two different ways of generally treating cancers. These treatment types also comes with its own disadvantages. they increase an individuals susceptibility to developing blood cancer. cancer is not the only problem in this case. an individual can develop other diseases from this as well

• Exposure to toxic substances

Dangerous benzene exposure isn't peculiar to inhalation of cigarette smoke alone, they are also present in some other substances that are always available in our every day lives. certain substances like insecticides, drugs, paints, gasoline, resins, and many other synthetically produces substances

Talking about leukemia prevention, especially in 3rd world countries. It is best to stay abreast with the possible risk factors that could possibly lead to this blood disease. The reason i say this is because, just like other types of cancer, leukemia can be life threatening and quite expensive to treat. Abject poverty has caused the death of many individuals in poor countries, due to the fact that getting a chemotherapy or any other type of cancer treatment done, is most times beyond what some individuals earn. Hence, it is best to stay abreast of the possible risk factors

Chemotherapy and Transplanting in leukemia

Treatment of leukemia is often one of the hardest amogst the different cancers present in our world today. The available methods of combating leukemia is usually in the blood composition.

Most individuals often have a picture of cancer in their head, as a tumor. I mean a group of rapidly dividing dysfunctional cells which eventually forms a mass. This is mostly seen by many as the major source of a cancer problem, and try as much as possible to get rid of it surgically or with medicine. This is what basically makes leukemia really complex to understand or even visualise, than other types of cancers

In leukemia cases, you dont necessarily observe a tumor in the patient, because leukemia is a cancer of the blood. To bring back the blood to its normal function, leukemia cells have to be eliminated. But because leukemia cases are not like other cancers that result in a tumor, leukemia cannot be surgically removed. There are other treatment methods which kills these cells inside the patients body, including chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is a combination of drugs, whose function is to combat rapidly growing dysfunctional cells. Most patient's dread this type of cancer treatment because of its side effects, effects like that of destroying cells found in hair follicles and intestines. it gets even more dangerous if the dosage is very high, because it might end up killing all cells located in the bone marrow, this includes normal stem cells. At this point, the body can no longer produce new stem cells. There is good and bad news to this..

The good news is we can get outside help in the form of stem cells. But these stem cells can come in from another individual who is known as a donor. Once this transplant takes place, the newly transplanted stem cells begin to multiply and repopulate the blood and bone marrow, thereby restoring normalcy in the patient

The negative news is, bone marrow transplanting is a complicated process because it requires a proper compatibility between the donor and recipient. Little mistakes in compatibility can result in the transplanted cells seeing the patient's cells as foreign bodies, and thereby attacking them. Unlike the cases of blood transplant, there are so many HLA which may end up in family and friends not having a compatible bone marrow with that of the patient. in cases like this, the search for a compatible bone marrow is extended to a database which contains the overall genetic make up of a lot of voluntary donors. The more the percentage of people willing to donate, the better for patients who needs bone marrow transplant.

Conclusion

Leukemia which is also known as cancer of the blood cells, originates in the bone marrow and out grows other normal stem cells. Leukemia cannot be surgically removed, since there are no visual tumors like the case of most cancer types. The best available treatment I explained, is making sure you keep abreast the risk factors that causes this illness, since it cannot be traced to any certain cause. Chemotherapy is the most popular treatment option for this type of cancer, and could have some severe side effects, including destruction of normal stem cells which will have to be replaced via transplanting.

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Reference

[1] cancer.sa

[2] Understanding leukemia basics

[3] chemotherapy for leukemia

[4] cancer.org

[5] What you need to know about leukemia

[6] Acute leukemia, wikipedia

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