Leukemia

Cancer related to blood cells is called as Leukemia. Under Leukemia condition, bone marrow produces abnormal cancerous blood cells that crowd out the normal and healthy blood cells. Leukemia is of different types based which blood cell type has become cancerous. White blood cells are more to prone to become cancerous than RBCs and platelets. Leukemia can be acute or chronic and Lymphocytic or Myelogenous. It occurs most commonly in adults above 55 years and children younger than 15 years. The treatment methods used depend on the blood cell affected and whether the leukemia is acute or chronic or Lymphocytic or Myelogenous. Chemotherapy is frequently used to treat leukemia.

A total of 1,084 cases of leukemia were diagnosed in the 1969-93 period in Japan. The annual incidence of all types of leukemia from 1984 to 1993 was about 4 per 100,000 children aged 0-14 years, with the incidence of ANLL decreasing slightly and that of ALL increasing. The ratio of ALL/ANLL could similarly be seen to be increasing in all age groups. Out of a cohort of 100,000 live births, about 65 children developed leukemia by 14 years of age, and in this longitudinal observation the ratio of ALL/ANLL was increasing.