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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