Cancer can form in and
attack any organ or organic system in the human body. When it comes down to
blood cancer, it is found that cancerous cells multiply rapidly and violently
attack different parts of the circulatory system, making it one of the, if not the
most dangerous cancer that could possibly attack anyone. Apart from blood and
the lymphatic system; bone marrow is prone to be affected by this kind of
cancer.
There are three basic
types of blood cancer, primarily. These are:
Leukemia – Because of
the rapid increase of cancerous cells that are either affecting the marrow or
the blood, the circulatory system loses its ability to produce and regulate
blood effectively, hence severely impairing it.
Lymphoma – The cancer
affecting lymphocytes is called lymphoma. Lymphocytes are one of the types of white
blood corpuscles.
Myeloma – Myeloma
affects plasma, another type of white blood corpuscles.
Treating blood cancer is
determined by various factors, such as age, how fast the cancer is progressing,
where the cancer has spread to, other health conditions, etc.
Leukemia is not a
single disease. Instead, the term leukemia refers to a number of related
cancers that start in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. There are
both acute and chronic forms of leukemia, each with many subtypes that vary in
their response to treatment. In addition, children with leukemia have special
needs that are best met by care in pediatric cancer centers.
In
general, there are five major approaches to the treatment of leukemia:
- Chemotherapy to kill leukemia cells using
strong anti-cancer drugs
- Interferon therapy to slow the reproduction of
leukemia cells and promote the immune system's anti-leukemia activity
- Radiation therapy to kill cancer cells by
exposure to high-energy radiation
- Stem cell transplantation (SCT) to enable
treatment with high doses of chemotherapy and radiation therapy and
- Surgery to remove an enlarged spleen or to
install a venous access device (large plastic tube) to give medications
and withdraw blood samples.
Younger
patients that are at high risk for dying from CLL might consider hematopoietic
stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Autologous stem cell transplantation, a
lower-risk form of treatment using the patient's own blood cells, is not
curative. Myeloablative (bone marrow killing) forms of allogeneic stem cell
transplantation, a high-risk treatment using blood cells from a healthy donor,
may be curative for some patients, but most patients cannot tolerate the
treatment. An intermediate level, called reduced-intensity conditioning
allogeneic stem cell transplantation, may be better tolerated by older or frail
patients.
Biological
Therapy : Biological
therapy, also referred to as immunotherapy, involves the treatment with those
substances that affect the ability of an immune system to kill cancer cells.
Monoclonal antibodies and interferon are the two types of biological therapy.
The purpose of monoclonal antibodies is to stick to cancer cells in order to
draw the attention of the immune system to these cancer cells. On the other
hand, interferon helps in stimulating the immune system so as to destroy the
cancer cells. These two options are generally used for chronic leukemia instead
of acute leukemia.
Radiotherapy
: Radiotherapy, also
known as radiation therapy, makes use of energy rays such as X-rays for
stopping the growth and multiplication of the cancer cells. This energy is
directed at any particular part of the body such as the spleen or also to the
entire body.
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