Symptoms of Blood Cancer Treatments and Causes, Types

Discover Types of Blood Cancer: Its Causes and Treatments

Blood cancers occur when the process of blood cell generation goes awry. There are three general types of blood cells:

Your white blood cells are an important part of your immune system that fights infection.
Your red blood cells carry oxygen to your body's tissues and organs. In return, they collect much of the carbon dioxide gas from your body to be exhaled from the lungs.
Platelets help your blood to clot when you cut or hurt yourself.

Usually, too much growth of the abnormal blood cells interferes with the production of normal blood cells. It can prevent the bone marrow from having enough healthy red blood cells, white blood cells, or platelets that circulate in the blood. Moreover, abnormal cells may leak into the blood circulation. These kinds of blood cells may circulate in one's blood and spread to other organs like the lymph glands, spleen, liver, lungs, and kidneys. If no remedy is executed, the normal and necessary functions of one's body will gradually decay.

Types of Blood Cancer

Leukaemia

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood and is a cancer where malignant, underdeveloped blood cells increase uncontrollably in number. The abnormal cells also spread up the bone marrow, an organ that usually produces most of the functions in the blood at a high rate. Typically, leukaemia cells are very young and immature white blood cells that have not yet reached their full developmental growth. The word "leukaemia" is a combination of two Greek words, meaning "white," "leukos," and "blood," "haima."

Unlike many other cancers, leukaemia does not usually cause a lump or tumour that can be seen with imaging. There are many types of leukaemia, some of which are more common in children than adults. How leukaemia is treated depends on the type and other factors.

Types of Leukemia

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML)
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)
Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL)

Treatment

Chemotherapy
Immunotherapy
Targeted therapy
Hematopoietic cell transplant
Radiation therapy
Chimeric antigen receptor CAR T-cell therapy

The treatment choice depends on the type of leukaemia that one has and the severity.

Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer type that affects the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system includes spleen, lymph nodes, thymus gland, and bone marrow. All these body parts may be affected by lymphoma, as well as other organs in the human body. The best lymphoma treatment to be used for a patient will depend on the type of lymphoma and the stage at which the disease is found. Treatment can be chemotherapy, immunotherapy drugs, radiation, bone marrow transplant or a combination of two or more methods.

Types of Lymphoma

Hodgkin's lymphoma, formerly called Hodgkin's disease)
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Treatment

Chemotherapy
Radiation therapy
Immunotherapy
Targeted therapy
CAR T-cell therapy
Stem cell transplantation

The choice of treatment will depend on the type of leukaemia that one has and the severity.

Malignancy

Malignancy of plasma cells is referred to as myeloma or multiple myeloma. Myeloma is the cancer of specialised white blood cells that have the function of producing antibodies that are required for the protection of our body from infections. But if it's about myeloma, then the disturbed excessive growth of plasma cells replaces the healthy cells in the bone marrow that were earlier responsible for the production of red blood, platelets, and other types of white blood cells.

Types of myeloma

Multiple myeloma
Solitary plasmacytoma
Extramedullary plasmacytoma

Treatment

Radiation therapy
Chemotherapy
Bone marrow transplant
Targeted therapy
CAR-T cell therapy
Corticosteroids
Immunotherapy

The choice of treatment is made depending on the form of leukaemia that one has and the stage it is in.

Signs and Symptoms of Blood Cancer

A patient who has been diagnosed with blood cancer will exhibit a combination of signs and symptoms that may include the following:

Unexplained weight loss
Unexplained bruising or bleeding
The presence of lumps or swellings
Unexplained rash or itching skin
Pain in bones or joints or abdomen
Feeling very tired and weak even when having enough rest or sleep.
Pale complexion- the skin of their inner lower eyelid is white in colour

Treatment of Blood Cancer

There exist several kinds of treatment for blood cancer. A type of blood cancer one may be having may need only one sort of treatment or a combination of treatments.

Treatments for blood cancers include chemotherapy, targeted therapy to kill cancer cells, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and stem cell transplants.
In some cases of slow-growing blood cancer, treatment may not be required immediately, and in fact, some people may never need treatment. You would be monitored regularly in "watch and wait" situations.
It is also true that the treatment of blood cancer can lead to harmful side effects. Some people, however, develop these complications due to the cancer itself, even if they are not under any kind of therapy.

Conclusion

Blood cancer includes leukaemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, which are essentially diseases caused by mutations existing in a person's DNA. These changes disturb the normal behaviour of blood cells. Normally, these are changes that one can't control and occur at some stage in one's entire life cycle rather than being inherited from parents. While some types of blood cancer do occur in children, it is also a fact that the symptoms and modes of treatment may vary widely between children and adults.

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FAQ

Can blood cancer be cured?

<p>Blood cancer can progress to a stage where it worsens the health of the patients and where removal of the cancer becomes impossible. Nevertheless, there are some treatment options still available in these cases to try to slow down the growth of the cancer. Some people opt not to have active treatment anymore.</p>