What Is Leukemia?

“What is Leukemia?” “Leukemia is a type of blood cancer that begins in the bone marrow. Bone marrow is the soft tissue in the center of the bones, where blood cells are produced.”( ghr.nlm.nih.gov) There are over 1 million Americans that are living with, or are in remission from, Leukemia. About 31% more males are living with leukemia than females. Another fact is that the 5 year survival rate for leukemia is about 10% lower for African Americans than for whites. The next paragraphs will talk about:background information about Leukemia, facts about Leukemia, symptoms and treatments for leukemia, and how it would be like if you were living with Leukemia.

Leukemia gose way back in time.( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov )“The early history of leukemia reaches back 200 years. In 1811, Peter Cullen defined a case of splenitis acutus with unexplainable milky blood. Alfred Velpeau defined the leukemia associated symptoms, and observed pus in the blood vessels (1825). Alfred Donné detected a maturation arrest of the white blood cells (1844). John Bennett named the disease leucocythemia, based on the microscopic accumulation of purulent leucocytes (1845). That same year, Rudolf Virchow defined a reversed white and red blood cell balance. He introduced the disease as leukämie in 1847. Henry Fuller performed the first microscopic diagnosis of a leukemic patient during life (1846).” Leukemia is a gene disorder. A gene disorder is when you either don't have one gene or have an extra gene. It is a gene disorder because “one of the two copies of the PAX5 gene are missing. The PAX5 is the gene that encoded protein it may also play a role in neural development.” (http://www.genecards.org) So that is the background information about Leukemia.

Theres more to Leukemia then the name. The life expectancy for Leukemia was once 3-7 years after the diagnosis. Now it is 10-20 years. This shows that doctors and scientist are figuring out new ways to slow down the progress of Leukemia. Another fact about Leukemia is “it is the 10th most frequently occurring type of cancer in all races or ethnicities.” So Leukemia can happen to anyone. Also Leukemia “causes almost one-third of all cancer deaths in children under the age 15.” (http://www.dosomething.org/) So many kids and teens die from it. Also,“Leukaemia is the eleventh most common cause of cancer death in the UK.” (http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/) “How many stages are there?” There are 4 stages of Leukemia stage 0, stage 1, stage 2, stage 3,and stage 4. In stage 0 chronic lymphocytic leukemia, there are too many lymphocytes in the blood, but there are no other symptoms of leukemia. Stage 0 chronic lymphocytic leukemia is indolent (slow-growing).In stage I chronic lymphocytic leukemia, there are too many lymphocytes in the blood and the lymph nodes are larger than normal.In stage II chronic lymphocytic leukemia, there are too many lymphocytes in the blood, the liver orspleen is larger than normal, and the lymph nodes may be larger than normal.In stage III chronic lymphocytic leukemia, there are too many lymphocytes in the blood and there are too few red blood cells. The lymph nodes, liver, or spleen may be larger than normal.In stage IV chronic lymphocytic leukemia, there are too many lymphocytes in the blood and too fewplatelets. The lymph nodes, liver, or spleen may be larger than normal and there may be too few red blood cells.So those are some facts about Leukemia.

Leukemia has many symptoms and treatments. The symptoms of Leukemia are “fever/chills,