What is leukemia?

A cancer of the blood cells, leukemia originates in the bone marrow but quickly spreads to the blood and other organs, including the lymph nodes, spleen, brain, spinal cord, and spinal fluid. In a normal body, the blood produces new cells as needed and as others die off. In a body infected with leukemia, new and dysfunctional cells form and divide at an uncontrollable rate, overloading the body and impairing its functions.

What are the different types of leukemia?

The four major types of leukemia are:

All leukemias are classified as either acute or chronic. Acute leukemia and its symptoms progress rapidly because blood cells no longer function properly. Conversely, chronic leukemia tends to be less aggressive, and patients experience relatively few symptoms in the disease’s early stages.

What kinds of treatments are available for leukemia?

Currently, there is no cure for leukemia or any other kind of cancer, but there are a variety of treatments intended to bring about remission. Cancer is considered beaten after a patient completes his fifth year of remission, a period during which no signs or symptoms of the cancer are present.

Options include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, stem cell transplantation, and, in less severe or slow-progressing cases, observation.

What is lymphoma?

Lymphoma is a cancer that originates in the body’s lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is composed, in part, of lymph nodes (small clusters of lymphocytes, or white blood cells) that fight infections within the body. In a healthy body, lymphocytes are produced regularly and die off regularly. But in a body infected with lymphoma, the lymphatic system produces abnormal, dysfunctional cells at an unpredictable, uncontrollable rate, destroying the body’s ability to adequately fight infections.

What are the different types of lymphoma?

The two types of lymphoma are Hodgkin’s lymphoma (also called Hodgkin’s disease) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Hodgkin’s lymphoma accounts for just 1 percent of all cancer cases in the United States and is triggered by uncontrollable growth of tumor-forming cells in the lymphatic system. Hodgkin’s lymphoma can originate anywhere because lymphatic tissue is found throughout the body. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (of which there are many types) occurs when abnormal lymphocytes are produced in massive quantities, overloading and impairing the lymph nodes. It can spread to anywhere in the body-including the bone marrow, spleen, and other organs-and accounts for 5 percent of all cancer cases in the United States.

What kinds of treatments are available for lymphoma?

To date, there is no cure for lymphoma. However, like leukemia patients, lymphoma patients are considered "cured" once their cancers have been in remission for five years.

Treatments designed to bring about remission in lymphoma patients include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, stem cell transplantation, and immunotherapy. Three FDA-approved immunotherapy drugs used against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin), tositumomab and iodine (Bexxar), and rituximab (Rituxan).

What is myelodysplastic syndrome?

Myelodysplastic syndrome is a disease in which dysfunctional, underdeveloped blood cells are produced in the bone marrow. More than one or all types of cells are affected in cases of myelodysplastic syndrome, whereas only one type of cell is affected in cases of leukemia. It is important to note that while myelodysplastic syndromes are not cancer, they may lead to it.

What treatments are available for myelodysplastic syndrome?

Available treatments include platelet or red blood cell transfusions, bone marrow transplants, and various medications. Chemotherapy and biological therapy treatments may be used against myelodysplastic syndrome in the near future. The treatments are currently in clinical trials.

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