What is Blood Cancer?
Blood Cancer or Leukemia is a cancer of blood cells. It affects the bone marrow, which is soft tissue that produces red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Bone marrow is found in the interior of bones. Blood cancer reduces the capacity of bone marrow to produce blood cells which in turn weakens the body capacity to fight against infections. There are two types of blood cells found in our bone marrow: RBC's and WBC's. RBC's constitutes the blood of our body while WBC' s help to us to fight against all infections by destroying bacteria, viruses, germs and other foreign cells. White blood cells have the capacity to fight against cancer cells as well but in case of leukemia bone marrow starts producing blood cells at an abnormal rate. This abnormality in blood cells count reduces the body capacity to fight against germs. A Leukemia patient can develop various infections, anemia, bleeding, easy bruising, weight loss, night sweats, and fever.
Types of Blood Cancer:
Blood cancer can affect both children and adults, but it is mostly found in old age. There are four categories of Blood Cancer depending upon the type of blood cells infected ( lymphocytes or myelocytes ) and how fast it develops (chronic or acute).
1)Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
2)Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
3)Acute Myelocytic Leukemia
4)Chronic Myelocytic Leukemia
What causes Blood Cancer:
The exact cause of Leukemia is not known till date but medical science has developed some risk factors, which can cause blood cancer. They are:
- It may develop due to certain infections.
- Exposure to radiation such as X rays and ultraviolet light, nuclear power plant accidents and atomic bomb explosions, can develop cancer.
- Certain chemicals also develop cancer.
- Blood cancer can develop if an individual suffers from any genetic disorders.
- Blood cancer can also develops if an individual suffers from any other blood diseases such as aplastic anemia.
Developing these risk factors does not mean that you suffer from blood cancer. The risk factors can appear due to some other diseases as well.
Symptoms:
The symptoms of blood cancer vary with individual as well as with stages. No one can surely say that a certain symptom confirms cancer but there are some common symptoms that help to diagnose blood cancer. Some common symptoms that appear in cancer patients are:
- Frequent weight loss
- Blood does not clots even in case of small injuries
- Feeling of tiredness all day long
- Appearance of bruises
- Regular fever
- Excessive sweating during sleep
- Dull skin
- Pain in bones and joints
- Abdominal pain, especially in the upper abdomen
- Feeling of dizziness over a long period
- Smoking
It might be possible that these symptoms do not appear in early stages of cancer but with advancement of diseases becomes visible.
Treatments to cure Blood Cancer:
Medical science has used technology in the best way to develop various diagnosis and treatment equipments. In case of cancer patients doctors first see the extremes of the disease. If it is at much advanced stage than doctors prefer to go for immediate treatment and therapies. If the disease is in early stages than they prefer to wait for the latest technology to adopt. As cancer cells are different, so is their growth rate. Some cancer cells grow abruptly while other takes time to grow. Once the disease is diagnosed, doctors go for the following treatments:
- Chemotherapy: This treatment procedure uses drugs to slowdown the rate of cancer cells. These drugs destroy cancer cells but sometime even the important body cells also get destroyed. These side effects appear while you take these medicines but once the diseases have been cured you can get over from these side effects. Chemotherapy reduces the growth of cancer cells, which can then be removed completely through surgery.
- Biological Therapy: Biological therapy means developing natural defense system of the body to fight against disease. Under this treatment procedure, the immune system of the body is used to fight against the disease. Doctors make the use of certain substances called biological response modifiers to increase immunity.
- Radiation Therapy: Under this treatment procedure, high energy rays are used to damage cancer cells. It also had some side effects such as tiredness, skin problems, and other.
- Bone marrow transplantation.
All these treatment procedures are done keeping in mind the health, age, and seriousness of the disease by medical experts.
Blood cancer is a complex disease, and its treatment is a lengthy process which needs regular visits to the doctors. You might feel irritated but your positive attitude and your care toward yourself is the ultimate thing to cure this disease. Daily exercises and healthy food can help you avoid this disease.
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