Case Study 6 Essay

There are two types of leukemia in children; acute and chronic. Acute is fast growing leukemia. Within acute leukemia are three categories: acute lymphocytic (lymphoblastic) leukemia (ALL), acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and hybrid or mixed lineage leukemia. Acute lymphocytic (lymphoblastic) leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of childhood leukemia and develop from early forms of lymphocytes, also known as white blood cells. Specifically, three out of four childhood leukemias are ALL (About Childhood Leukemia). Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) starts from the myeloid cells that create blood forming cells such as white blood cells (except for lymphocytes), red blood cells, and platelets (About Childhood Leukemia). Hybrid or mixed lineage leukemia are rare forms of childhood leukemia, but can be treated like ALL and AML. On the other end of the spectrum is chronic, or slow growing, leukemia. Chronic leukemia is difficult to treat and are more commonly found in adults than children. There are two types of chronic leukemia: chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is not commonly

They are often vague by the influenza or other common diseases. They are including fever, shortness of breath, excessive bleeding, Petechiae, weakness, tiredness, loss of appetite, and loss of weight. If not treated, overtime, AML can be more distinctive with signs of enlargement of the spleen, swelling of the gums because of infiltration of leukemic cells into the gum tissue, and. Tumor or mass outside the bone marrow is rarely seen in AML due to its rapid, abrupt onset that the disease are often detected through routine blood check.

Of course, these are not just symptoms of ALL and are more often caused by something other than leukemia. (p. 1)

Bob was presented in the emergency one day with anemia and thrombocytopenia. Bob had several admissions over a two-month period for various reasons. On the last admission Bob and his parents were told that he may only have 4–6 weeks to live. Bob’s parents insisted on continuing chemotherapy for Bob in the hopes that he would be cured.

The general symptoms for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which are non-specific symptoms are weight loss, fever, night sweats, fatigue, and loss of appetite. These symptoms can cause numerous conditions, not just acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Since acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a cancer of the blood cells, it can cause symptoms related to shortages of normal blood cells due to the overcrowding of leukemia cells in the bone marrow. These signs and symptoms include: feeling tired, weak, dizzy or lightheaded, shortness of breath, fever, pale skin coloration, bruising easily, frequent or severe nosebleeds and/or bleeding gums, petechial, painless lumps in the neck, underarm, stomach or groin, pain or feeling of fullness below the ribs, and infections that don’t go away or keeping coming

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, is the disease that affects children the most and because of the abnormal cells that are immature white blood cells which cannot help the body fight infections cause children with the disease to often get infections and have fevers (National Cancer Institute, 2002, p. 1). The symptoms that the patient with ALL may have depend on the number of abnormal cells of the patient where exactly the cells collect. Children patients with ALL have low amounts of healthy red blood cells and platelets, which cause less oxygen to be carried through the body because of the lack of red blood cells. Patients at times may look pale, feel weak, and tired causing bleeding and bruising very easily because of their lack of enough platelets. This condition is called anemia. Anemia is very much common in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Fever, fatigue, bone or joint pain, tiny red spots under the skin called petechiae are a couple of symptoms that the disease ALL has. Headaches with, or without vomiting also may occur if patient happens to have abnormal cells collecting in the brain or spinal cord (National Cancer Institute, 2002 para. 2).

The symptoms of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia usually begin slowly before rapidly getting severe as the number of blast cells in the blood increase. Most of the symptoms are caused by the lack healthy blood cells in the blood supply. Symptoms of this disease include: pale skin, feeling tired and/or breathless, having repeated infections over a short period of time, unusual and frequent bleeding, such as nosebleeds and bleeding gums, high temperatures, night sweats, bone and joint pain, easily bruised skin, swollen lymph nodes, abdominal pain caused by a swollen liver or spleen, unexplained weight loss, and a purple skin rash or also known as a purpura. The symptoms could relate to a different illness or maybe just a common cold. Although they are quite common, they could be a path to an extremely cruel

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is a profound disease that involves an overproduction of immature myeloid and lymphoid cells. Hematopoiesis is a process where Hemocytoblast stem cells differentiate into a range of progenitor cells. Part of the developmental process for these progenitor cells occurs in the spleen, liver and lymph nodes. In ALL, clonal cells then take up space within the blood stream, causing the percentage of normal blood constituents to be out of balance. For example, less erythrocytes are made, putting the suffer at risk of being anemic which has further risks associated with it. It can be determined that you have ALL from a blood test, chromosome analysis or a bone marrow sample. For a blood test, then a complete blood

The second type is Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), where the bone marrow produces too many white blood cells. This type commonly affects adults and rarely affects children. The third main type is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), where abnormal white blood cells accumulate in the bone marrow. This is the only main type of leukemia that can occur in both children and adults equally. The final type of Leukemia is Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), and this is occurs when too many abnormal lymphocytes grow, and it crowds out the normal blood cells making it difficult for the body to fight infection.

The age-adjusted incidence of acute myeloid leukemia is 3.6 per 100000 persons per year, with a median age of 66 years at diagnosis. Whereas the outcome for patients with AML who are less than 60 years of age has improved over the past several decades, the major reasons for failure are primary refractoriness of the disease to initial chemotherapy or failure to maintain the complete state of remission.. Some patients have residual leukemic cells in their marrow even after intensive treatment. This is referred to as “refractory leukemia.” There are other patients who have a return of leukemia cells in the marrow and a decrease in normal blood cells after achieving a remission. This is referred to as “relapsed leukemia.” (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society 2011)

Though most of these symptoms are caused by many things other than leukemia it is still very important to alert your doctor when you notice these things, as it may be crucial in detecting a problem in your child. Your doctor will then be able to move forward with gaining medical history and conducting a physical exam where they may look for swollen lymph nodes, areas of bleeding or bruising and signs of infection. Feeling the belly for swollen spleen or liver signs and thoroughly checking the eyes the mouth and the nervous system. Following the physical exam a finger prick may be obtain along with a blood sample. If test come back with abnormalities and bone marrow sample will need to be taken for sure. When the bone marrow samples are taken a biopsy is done usually at the same time. Doctors may also use a number of other test along with imaging test.

When a parent takes their child to the doctor the last thing they want to hear is that their child has cancer. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a child to be diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, also known as ALL. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is one of the most common forms of childhood cancer, and “makes up approximately 25% of cancer diagnoses among children under 15 years old” (3). Children under five years of age are at the most risk of developing ALL. Since it is an acute form of cancer once the onset has begun the disease quickly begins to worsen, therefore patients must seek treatment as soon as possible. “ALL is different than other diseases in that it is not just a single disease but also rather a group of related diseases with different subtypes”(1). This uniqueness causes the treatment of ALL to depend on the subtypes the patient has, therefore each

Patients may undergo a series of treatment such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and stem cell transplant. If patients symptoms disappear therapy may still be needed to prevent relapse (Bernard & Tia, 2011). Children who have this disease undergo different regimens than any adult would (University of Maryland Medical Center, 2013). The risk factors that are most often associated with leukemia are not well understood. High level of exposure to medical radiation treatments is on major side effects to the treatment of leukemia. However this treatment may cause side effects to patients but controls the

Leukemia is a cancer that attacks a persons’ blood. This is where the patients’ white blood cells grow abnormally and mutate, blocking the growth of normal blood cells. Leukemia can cause bruising that seems to come from nowhere and a person cannot remember where they got them from. White blood cells are very important to immunity so having this cancer can highly decrease someone’s immunity to anything from the common cold to a viral infection. If Leukemia is not caught in time, like all cancers, it can be deadly.

The definition of acute leukemia arising from an antecedent MPN follows standard WHO convention for the diagnosis of acute leukemia. The presence of greater than or equal to 20% blasts in the peripheral blood or bone marrow fulfills this definition. Notably, a discrepancy between bone marrow and peripheral blood blasts is frequently observed in patients with preceding MPN. In many cases this is due to fibrosis of the marrow which renders a bone marrow aspirate unobtainable. As well, it has been postulated that areas of extramedullary hematopoiesis contribute to leukemogensis which may lead to further differences between blast counts observed in the bone marrow and peripheral blood (1). Notably, the International Working Group for Myelofibrosis Research and Treatment (IWG-MRT) has proposed nomenclature for patients with post-ET MF, post-PV MF and PMF