Let’s start with understanding leukemia

Leukemia is the general name for different kinds of blood or bone marrow cancers. In leukemia, “abnormal” (or cancerous) white blood cells grow and multiply in the bone marrow. Most patients with leukemia have very high numbers of white blood cells. These extra cells don’t work in a normal way. Over time, they crowd out normal blood cells and can keep them from working correctly, too. Patients can also experience anemia (having too few red blood cells in the body), which typically causes a person to feel tired, weak, and short of breath because the body tissues are not getting enough oxygen. Another complication is a shortage of platelets, another type of cell in the blood, which is called thrombocytopenia. This condition may cause a person to bleed and bruise easily.

The ways that people are affected by their cancer and how it spreads are different for each type of leukemia. Some leukemias grow fast (acute leukemias), and others grow much more slowly (chronic leukemias). If leukemia starts from an immature myeloid cell, which is a kind of white blood cell, it is called myeloid leukemia. If leukemia starts from an immature lymphocyte (another kind of white blood cell) it is called lymphocytic leukemia. Both kinds can grow quickly or slowly.

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