Leukemia


 * __Leukemia__**

Tabatha Johnson

Leukemia is a cancer of the white cells in the blood. What happens is the cells are made in the bone marrow and instead of becoming mature like normal; they stay immature and then continue dividing. Leukemia is one of the top fifteen most frequently occurring cancers in the minority groups. It can affect anyone of all ages and sexes. There are four main types of Leukemia; acute, chronic, myelogenous, and lymphocytic. Acute Leukemia happens all of a sudden, while Chronic Leukemia can take a while to affect someone. In 1827 a French physician named Alfred Velpeau conducted an autopsy of a man who had experienced fever, weakness, pain, pus-filled blood, headaches, and his spleen weighed ten pounds. Twelve years later two more French physicians reported finding similar cases, but one difference was that they determined the pus-filled blood was actually just blood full of white cells. In 1845 Scottish physicians found more white blood cells, also known as leukocytes, in a few more autopsies. Also in 1845 a German pathologist named Rudolph Virchow called the white blood //weisses blut// that was used to describe the unbalance of red blood cells and leukocytes. Then in 1890 another German physician, Paul Ehrlich, found that the leukocytes changed in shape, function, and kind. Without knowing it all these people stumbled into what is now known as leukemia. The signs and symptoms are sometimes hard to detect because they are similar to other diseases. Some of the symptoms are you feel weak and tired all the time, another is you find that you bruise for absolutely no reason. Sometimes you have a fever, and if you have Leukemia then you are bound to get sick from every little thing. That’s because the cancerous cells take over your regular cells, and since they weaken your immune system you have no protection from little sicknesses. When you have Chronic Leukemia you can go without symptoms for months, so these usually apply to Acute Leukemia. If you have any of these symptoms then you need to have them checked out, just to make sure that everything is okay. The first thing they do is test your blood to see if it contains any signs of cancer. If it does then they will do a bone marrow test, which is where they extract the marrow from your hip bone through a hollow needle. This will determine how to help slow or stop the cancer. Detecting and catching the Leukemia early can be the difference between life and death for you. Tobacco smoke, chronic exposure to benzene, having Down syndrome, doing Chemotherapy, and high doses of radiation therapy put you at risk for Leukemia. It is most common in people over sixty. Whites have a high rate of getting Leukemia, while American Indians and Alaskan Natives have a very low rate. Black children have a lower rate for getting it than Hispanics, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Whites, and Asian or Pacific islanders. The people most likely to get leukemia though happen to be Hispanic children under the age of twenty. Obviously you can’t avoid some risk factors, but you can try to stay away from tobacco smoke, and be aware of what things are around you. To treat Leukemia you can either do Chemotherapy, Inpatient therapy, Bone Marrow transplantation, and drugs like Gleevea or Sprycel. Treatment can take years to work effectively, and it is a lot of hard work. The goal to reach through therapy is remission. Remission is where there is no longer any evidence of the disease in the patient and they go back to normal health. Unfortunately some people relapse, and that is where the disease comes back. If you finish treatment and go into remission for at least five years, you are considered cured. And treatment centers report that patients who have a complete remission are increasing after their diagnosis. In the past forty-seven years the five year survival rate for Leukemia patients has more than tripled. Males have a 30% higher chance of dying from Leukemia than females. Leukemia happens to cause more deaths in children under twenty than any other cancer. Your survival rates change, it all depends on your age at diagnosis, your gender, your race, and the type of Leukemia. Did you know that at this time there are approximately 218,659 people living in the US with Leukemia. Another good thing is that the death rate for children 0-14 years old has dropped 70% in the last thirty years. Right now scientists are working to help increase survival chances even more.