Anemia is more common in patients with leukemia and the causes are complex and include:
- Drug-induced anemia in chemotherapy;
- Consumptive anemia due to thrombocytopenia, marked bleeding tendency, skin mucosa, and visceral bleeding;
- Anemia due to reduction of effective bone marrow hematopoietic tissue as a direct result of tumor infiltration of bone marrow;
- Iron-use disorder anemia due to recurrent infections after chemotherapy;
- In addition, there are few nutritional anemias that occur due to emotional digestive and other factors, such as reduced eating.
Anemia in patients with leukemia should be treated according to the patient’s primary cause of anemia, for example:
- Iron supplements for malnutrition, platelet transfusions to improve coagulation in patients with excessive loss, and erythropoietin or herbal supportive therapy for chemotherapy drug-induced anemia, as appropriate.
- For acute leukemia, anemia due to iron overload from repeated massive transfusions that affect bone marrow hematopoiesis requires control of red blood cell transfusions as much as possible and iron chelating drugs if necessary.
- For anemia caused by the disease itself, aggressive treatment of the primary cause is required.
- For iron-use disorder anemia due to infection, aggressive antibiotic therapy is needed to control the infection.