subject: Blood Cancer Treatment Procedures [print this page] Original meaning of word leukemia is White and Blood. As the name implies, leukemia is the abnormal increase of white blood cells in the body. It is also commonly known as blood cancer. However, in some cases, it also affects the person's bone marrow.
There are two types of blood cancer: acute type and chronic type. Children are usually affected by the acute type, and it usually needs immediate treatment. The chronic type may affect any age group. Commonly, it affects the adults, especially those that belong to the geriatric population. Unlike the acute type, this usually takes a long time before it develops. Therefore, treatment is often delayed to give way to monitoring of the condition.
Usually, blood cancer treatment consists of multiple drugs. Most of these drugs are administered in order to aid in eliminating the cancer cells that may be found not only in the patients' blood streams but also in other structures of their circulatory systems. Usually, these cancerous cells may be found on the lymph nodes and spleens. In blood cancer treatment, the drugs aim to reduce the number of excessive white blood cells by directly interacting with the cell processes of the cancerous cells. The drugs that have been administered may either be interfering with the duplication process of these malignant cells or the so-called suicide phase of these cancerous cells.
One side effect of the blood cancer treatment is that it kills a good percentage of the healthy blood cells too during the process. Because of this side effect, during the blood cancer treatment, blood transfusions should be included. This is because when the healthy blood cells are not replaced with new ones, not only will the patient suffer from anemia but also suffer from possible lowered blood count. This, in turn, can lead to more serious health problems that are indirectly brought about by the medications and the disease itself.
Surgery is also a choice for blood cancer treatment. This is because in some cases of blood cancer, it is the bone marrow that has the problem. The bone marrow is responsible for producing new blood cells that will circulate to the different parts of the body. It locates inside the large bones of the body, and is in red color. If the bone marrow had problems, the total red cell count in the body is greatly diminished as compared to those of the white blood cells. It causes systemic abnormal reactions in the person's body. The body compensates by producing more white blood cells.
The bone marrow transplant is usually done as an adjunct to the other types of blood cancer treatment previously mentioned. In the process of the transplant, the problematic bone marrow is usually replaced by a healthy one from the donor. The healthy bone marrow donor is usually a patient's relative. In order for the operation to be successful, the new bone marrow should highly match the bone marrow the person had before the surgery. Incompatibility with the bone marrow will result to the rejection of the patient's body. The patient's body will recognize the new bone marrow as an alien and may attack it instead of helping out in normalizing the process within the person's body.
by: temp002
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
