More than half of patients with leukemia have fever as their first symptom. During the course of treatment thereafter, patients with leukemia also often develop fever. So, why do fevers occur and what exactly are the causes?
- First, most fevers in patients with leukemia are related to infection.
- Patients with leukemia have a large number of leukemia tumor cells in their bodies. These leukemia cells are clonally proliferating and cannot develop and mature normally, are not functioning as mature white blood cells, and therefore cannot help the body fight infection.
- At the same time, the proliferating leukemia cells inhibit the production of normal leukocytes in the bone marrow, so the body’s immunity is low, and infections of the respiratory and urinary tracts may lead to hyperthermia.
- After chemotherapy, leukemia patients with bone marrow suppression and granulocyte deficiency are also prone to infection and fever, and all such patients require antibiotic therapy.
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- Secondly, the destruction of leukemia tumor cells in the blood can also lead to an increase in body temperature, which is often referred to as “tumor fever” by doctors.
- These patients usually have no obvious symptoms.
- These patients usually have no obvious foci of infection and their temperature does not improve significantly with antibiotics, so antipyretic and anti-inflammatory drugs can be used to improve symptoms.
- In addition there are a very small number of patients who may develop fever in response to the drugs during chemotherapy, and the symptoms of fever may resolve with symptomatic treatment or after the course of treatment.