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What
is Leukemia?
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Leukemia is a cancer of the blood-forming cells. In most forms of leukemia, it is the white blood cells that become malignant. There are several types of leukemia, including acute myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, chronic myelogenous leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
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This year, an estimated 3,600 Canadians will be diagnosed with leukemia. About 90 percent of leukemia patients are adults, although it is the most common form of childhood cancer.
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Leukemia is treated by chemotherapy, but in some cases more aggressive chemotherapy is required to kill off the cancerous blood cells, sometimes damaging healthy stem cells used to create more blood. This is why some patients require bone marrow transplants.
Did you
know...
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There are two main forms of acute leukemia: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).
ALL is by far the commonest form of leukemia in children, but is rare in adults. AML accounts for about 80% of adult acute leukemia.
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Until the 1960’s acute leukemia in most cases were fatal, usually within a few weeks of diagnosis. Since that time, new treatments have been developed that allow successful treatment of leukemia. The most important of these treatments are chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation.
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Today over 85% of children and about 40% of young adults who are diagnosed with acute leukemia are cured.
Bone Marrow Transplants
Bone Marrow Transplants (BMTs) generally refers to the transplantation of stem cells collected either from bone marrow or the blood stream. BMT is a therapy that replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow cells or chemotherapy-weakened cells with a transfusion of healthy stem cells.
These stem cells can come either from the patient themselves (autologous transplant) or a healthy, suitably matched donor (allogeneic transplant).
The
Importance
of Giving Blood
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In Canada, roughly 137,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year.
We all know that cancer patients often need blood or blood products to
survive their treatments.
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The number of transplants has increased steadily from 16 per one million
Canadians in 1981 to 59 per one million Canadians in 2000. This includes
kidney, liver, pancreas, heart, lung and bowel transplants – all of which are
lengthy procedures requiring significant amounts of blood.
Every minute of every day, someone in Canada needs blood.
That someone could be a loved one, a friend, a co-worker—or even you.
As you can see, the need for blood and blood products is rapidly rising—and we need to increase the percentage of eligible Canadians who donate blood.
For more information on giving blood please contact the Canadian
Blood Services.
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