the blood
Blood is made in the human body via blood vessels. The blood is composed mainly of two parts, plasma and blood cells, where the plasma forms half of the volume of blood, sugar and nutrients are dissolved. Plasma contains proteins that prevent blood clotting, Blood cells are red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Red blood cells transport oxygen through the blood to the body’s various tissues. White blood cells respond to infection. White blood cells play an important role in the human immune system. Platelets The bloody Vttoly function help blood to clot.
The bone marrow produces mainly white blood cells. The spleen, the lymph nodes and the thymus produce a small amount of these cells. White blood cells are found centrally in the lymph nodes and spleen, and the rest of the cells spread in the blood and in the lymphatic fluid.
Leukemia
Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the blood, which often affects white blood cells. The bone marrow produces abnormal white blood cells at a faster rate than normal, resulting in its inability to function properly. Combine normal cells in the bloodstream.
Symptoms of leukemia
Whether acute or chronic leukemia can cause many symptoms, these symptoms are:
- Infection frequently.
- Feeling tired and fatigue, as this fatigue does not go away with rest.
- Intuitive weight loss and loss of appetite.
- Ease of bruising, bleeding.
- Pain in the bones and joints of the body.
- Small red spots appear on the skin.
- High body temperature, chills.
- Severe sweating especially at night.
- Swollen lymph nodes, but they are not painful, and can also swell the liver and spleen.
- Frequent bleeding from the nose.
- Because leukemia can spread to other parts of the body such as the central nervous system, lungs, heart, kidneys, testes and gastrointestinal tract, it can show symptoms associated with the place of proliferation. For example, the spread of leukemia to the central nervous system will cause headaches, nausea and loss of muscle control and even convulsions.
Risk factors
Although the cause of leukemia remains unexplored, there are several factors that may cause a person to develop some types of leukemia and increase the chances of contracting the disease, including:
- Genetic disorders, as they contribute to the injury of people with leukemia, for example, the incidence of Down syndrome increases the chances of incidence of leukemia.
- Smoking, which increases the chance of acute myeloid leukemia.
- Exposure to some types of chemicals such as gasoline.
- Chemotherapy and radiation therapy from other previous cancers.
- Family member with leukemia.
- Exposure to radiation is significant.
- Blood disorders such as Myelodysplastic Syndrome.
Types of leukemia
There are several types of leukemia or leukemia, where leukemia can be acute or chronic, and acute leukemia means sudden onset of disease. Chronic disease means that the disease appears gradually and slowly on the patient. Leukemia can also be divided into several types based on cell type Infected, are lymphocytes or spinal cells, where there are four main types of leukemia:
Lymphatic leukemia
Known as Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). In this type of leukemia, the number of immature lymphocytes grows rapidly in the blood. This type of leukemia affects children mainly,
Although it can affect adults, this type of the most common types of leukemia in children.
Acute myeloid leukemia
It is also known as Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), where spinal cells are rapidly growing in this type of leukemia. This type of leukemia can affect children and adults, and is the most common type of acute leukemia in adults.
Chronic myeloid leukemia
It is also known as Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). It is often found in adults. Symptoms may be delayed for months or years, or very few symptoms may occur in patients with this type of leukemia. Cancers divide by a rapid rate.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
It is also known as Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), often affecting people over 50 years of age, the most common chronic leukemia in adults, and may live in good health for years without treatment.
Diagnosis of leukemia
Diagnosis of the patient begins by knowing the symptoms he is suffering from, and the clinical examination, where the doctor can find signs of skin rash as a result of anemia, or enlargement of the liver and spleen, the doctor may also find through the clinical examination swelling of the lymph nodes, but can not diagnose leukemia Without a few tests, including a comprehensive blood cell count to determine the number of red blood cells, white blood cells, and examining the appearance of blood cells under the microscope, the doctor may also request biopsies of bone marrow tissue and lymph nodes, and through these biopsies to detect the presence of leukemia Determine the type and rate of growth, it can also be taken from biopsies and other tissues of the body; the liver, the spleen to detect the spread of leukemia.
Treatment of leukemia
Leukemia is treated by doctors specializing in blood disorders and cancer. Treatment depends on the type of leukemia and the stage at which the cancer has reached. In general, leukemia can be treated with chemotherapy, through which cancer cells are killed. Treatment is done using one type of chemotherapy or A group of species.
The second treatment used by doctors to treat leukemia is radiation therapy, which in turn inhibits the growth of cancer cells. The third method of treatment depends on the transplantation of stem cells of the patient or by a donor to replace the diseased bone marrow cells with a healthy one, and leukemia can be treated with immunotherapy or It may help your body’s immune system to identify cancer cells and then attack them.