Leukemia (blood cancer, leukemia, lymphosarcoma) – is a group of tumors, which is characterized by uncontrolled proliferation and varying degrees of differentiation of hematopoietic cells. Leukemic cells at the same time are the descendants of one mutated cell clones.
Causes of leukemia
The cause of leukemia, as a rule, are chromosomal aberrations, ie changes in the structure of chromosomes as a result of various restructuring processes of their structure: translocations, deletions, inversion, fragmentation.
In accordance with the traditional classification, all divided into acute leukemia (AL) and chronic (CL). This division is associated with different ability data for differentiation of proliferating tumor cells.
In the case of acute leukemia differentiation was virtually absent in the blood builds up a lot of immature, nonfunctional blast cells, resulting in inhibition of normal hematopoiesis of all germs. These features are identified in the blood of more than 80% of cases. Chronic leukemia (leukemia) gives the population of differentiated cells, usually granulocyte gradually replace normal cells in peripheral blood.
Acute leukemia divided into Lymphoblastic and myeloblastic.
Acute lymphoblastic leuco W (ALL) usually develops from a precursor B-lymphocytes (about 75% of cases). There are also B-ALL and T-ALL. Cytogenetic counts the presence of Philadelphia chromosome.
Acute myeloblastic leukemia (acute myeloid leukemia) is often called "nelimfoblastny leukemia", to emphasize its diversity and unlike ALL, because blasts at the same time can have granulocyte, erythrocyte, and even platelet origin. Acute leukemia nelimfoblastny histologically classified by the letter M with the numbers from 0 to 7, for example, M7 – it megakarioblastnaya acute leukemia.
Chronic leukemia in children are rare and are also a diverse group of diseases:
The diagnosis of leukemia is put together research on blood and bone marrow.
When the diagnosis is crucial is not the clinical picture, and cytogenetics, morphology and immunology detected blasts. From identified with the parameters will depend not only staging a definitive diagnosis but also prognosis, treatment and outcome.
Forecast for leykimii generally more favorable in children (1-9 years), and also depends on the type of pathology, cell type and timing of detection of the disease.
Treatment
Mainstay of treatment for leukemia is chemotherapy. Treatment protocol today, but because each type of pathology and some of its features are relevant to the choice of the treatment protocol. In acute leukemia treatment is based on chemotherapy. Its efficiency is higher in acute limfolekoze is 95%. In acute myeloid leukemia effectiveness of chemotherapy is over 80%, but is often accompanied by complications, and 5-year remission was observed only 40% of patients, while recurrence at ALL – a rare phenomenon. In the treatment of CML effectiveness of chemotherapy is not 20-40%.
The best results so far gives allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Satisfactory results are obtained by alpha-interferon therapy. Recently, high hopes for drugs that block the activity of protein tyrosine kinase Bcr-Abl, for example, the drug STI-571. It is believed that these drugs can be used for maintenance monotherapy, ie for the prevention of blast crisis. In general, the treatment of leukemia should be conducted in a specialized department, with the possibility of applying the most modern and effective treatment that guarantees a greater likelihood of complete remission and full recovery from the full range of therapeutic measures.
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