September is Leukemia Awareness Month, a time to remember those going through the illness.
Mayo Clinic defines leukemia as the cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues, including the bone marrow and the lymphatic system.
The website continues to say that various types of leukemia exist: some forms are more common in children while other forms occur mostly in adults.
Symptoms of Leukemia
Symptoms of this cancer vary but the most common include:
Fever or chills
Persistent fatigue, weakness
Frequent or severe infections
Losing weight without trying
Swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen
Easy bleeding or bruising
Recurrent nosebleeds
Tiny red spots in skin (petechiae)
Excessive sweating, especially at night
Bone pain or tenderness
Treatment Options
Www.mayoclinic.org proposes the following treatment options for leukemia:
Chemotherapy: This is the major form of treatment for leukemia. This drug treatment uses chemicals to kill leukemia cells.
Targeted therapy: Targeted drug treatments focus on specific abnormalities present within cancer cells. By blocking these abnormalities, targeted drug treatments can cause cancer cells to die.
Radiation therapy: This therapy uses X-rays or other high-energy beams to damage leukemia cells and stop their growth. Radiation therapy may be used to prepare for a bone marrow transplant.
Bone marrow transplant: This is also called a stem cell transplant and helps reestablish healthy stem cells by replacing unhealthy bone marrow with leukemia-free stem cells that will regenerate healthy bone marrow. Before a bone marrow transplant, you receive very high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy to destroy the leukemia-producing bone marrow, then receive an infusion of blood-forming stem cells that help rebuild the bone marrow. Stem cells may come from a donor or from the patient.
Immunotherapy: This uses one’s immune system to fight cancer.
Engineering immune cells to fight leukemia. A specialized treatment called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy takes the patient’s germ-fighting T cells, engineers them to fight cancer and infuses them back into the patient’s body.
Clinical trials: Clinical trials are experiments to test new cancer treatments and new ways of using existing treatments.
Gathered by Eleanor Ayuketah Ngochi
