Leukemia is what is known as blood cancer. It is a malignant tumor originating from hematopoietic stem cells or hematopoietic progenitor cells. The normal hematopoiesis of the bone marrow is inhibited due to uncontrolled proliferation, impaired differentiation, and impaired apoptosis of the affected blood cells, and abnormal leukemic cells proliferate, making the number of red blood cells and platelets decrease and dysfunctional, and sometimes abnormal coagulation can occur, while infiltrating various organs in the body, making organ function impaired.
The etiology of leukemia is unclear and the pathogenesis is complex and may be related to certain viral infections, chemical factors, radiation, and genetic factors. The clinical onset is insidious and often presents with nonspecific symptoms such as anemia, fever, infection, bleeding, etc. Early clinical symptoms alone are not easily distinguished from other diseases and may be accompanied by bone pain and enlargement of the liver and spleen lymph nodes to varying degrees.
According to the stage of differentiation of the leukemic cells, they can be divided into acute leukemia and chronic leukemia; according to the cell type, they can be divided into lymphocytic leukemia, myeloid leukemia, and later subdivided into multiple types. The diagnosis of the disease is based on the results of bone marrow smear, flow, chromosomal and genetic tests from bone marrow aspiration to confirm the diagnosis.