Leukemia, also known as blood cancer, is a malignant tumor of the hematopoietic system. The origin of the disease is the abnormal working of the hematopoietic tissue in the bone marrow due to mutations in the intracellular deoxyribonucleic acid. The stem cells in the bone marrow can produce thousands of red blood cells and white blood cells every day. Patients with leukemia overproduce immature white blood cells, which interferes with the other work of the bone marrow, and this reduces the bone marrow’s ability to produce other blood cells. Leukemia can spread to the lymph nodes, spleen, liver, central nervous system and other organs.
1. Who is prone to leukemia?
The incidence of leukemia is higher in people with: (1) similar diseases in the family, children born to close relatives, or people with certain congenital diseases; (2) immune deficiencies (such as AIDS) or autoimmune diseases (such as systemic lupus erythematosus), and low immune function; (3) long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs (such as prednisone or hydrocortisone), cytotoxic drugs (such as cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, etc.) or (4) Received or engaged in radiation, atomic energy, nuclear power plants and other related work; (5) Automotive industry, beauty industry, dye production industry, decoration industry, or long-term/repeated exposure to gasoline, paint, hair dye, decoration pollution, chemicals, toxins, etc.; (6) Certain suffer from other blood diseases (myelodysplastic syndrome , lymphoma, multiple myeloma, paroxysmal sleep hemoglobinuria, etc.), which may develop into leukemia.
2. Is having leukemia a death sentence?
People have the impression that leukemia is considered an “incurable disease” and that it is a death sentence. In fact, due to the current development of medical technology, there have been major breakthroughs in the treatment of leukemia.
New treatment methods, such as improved chemotherapy protocols, molecular targeting, induced differentiation therapy, bone marrow transplantation; coupled with improved nutrition and hygiene, can not only prolong the survival of leukemia patients, but also cure some patients, such as acute promyelocytic leukemia (M3).
3.What are the current treatment methods for leukemia?
Because of the complexity of leukemia typing and prognostic stratification, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment. With reasonable and comprehensive treatment, a significant number of patients can be cured or stabilized in the long term.
(1) Chemotherapy: Blood cells go through a maturation phase when they are generated from the bone marrow and then into the blood vessels. In acute leukemia, this is due to the presence of a large number of blood cells that are still immature and in the infantile stage. The role of chemotherapy in leukemia is to promote the maturation of these immature blood cells or to accelerate their apoptosis.
(2) Radiotherapy: For larger lymph nodes, if chemotherapy is not effective, radiation can be used to reduce the size of the lymph nodes.
(3) Molecular targeting therapy: Certain abnormal blood cells carry fusion genes, and molecular targeting drugs can target such fusion genes and inhibit the proliferation of abnormal blood cells.
(4) Immunomodulation: Patients with leukemia tend to have immune deficiencies, such as specific antigen expression, which provide the basis for antibody therapy or cell therapy (IL-2, monoclonal antibodies, etc.).
(5) Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: It is the removal of abnormal cells from leukemia patients through high-dose radiotherapy pretreatment, and then transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells derived from oneself or others to leukemia patients to enable them to rebuild normal hematopoietic and immune systems. This mainly includes autologous or allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, and umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation.
(6) Supportive therapy: including the application of highly effective antibiotics, component blood transfusion, hematopoietic growth factors, etc., all play a very important role in the efficacy and prognosis of treatment for leukemia patients.
4. Do all leukemia patients need bone marrow transplantation?
Many leukemia patients think that bone marrow transplantation is the only treatment for leukemia, so they do everything they can to find a suitable bone marrow match and even sell their family assets to cover the cost of the transplant. Unbeknownst to them, not everyone is suitable for bone marrow transplantation.
In addition to supportive therapies such as blood transfusion and anti-infection, chemotherapy and transplantation are the main means to improve the remission rate of leukemia patients, resulting in prolonged remission, survival, especially asymptomatic survival, and long-term survival or even cure for a significant proportion of patients.