Leaukaemia Flashcards
What is leaukaemia?
A cancer of the blood and the blood cells
i.e bone marrow and blood cells
Who does leukaemia typically affect?
Children and young people
How does leukaemia present?
- Tired
- Bruised
- Pale
- Itchy
What are the types of leukaemia?
- Lymphoblastic
- Myeloid
- Both can be acute and chronic
What is acute leukaemia?
- characterised by a rapid increase in the numbers of immature white blood cells
- rapid treatment is required
- 2 main subgroups AML and ALL
- ALL = overproduction of immature lymphocytes called lymphoblasts
- AML = overproduction of abnormal white blood cells which accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells
What does a monocyte do?
- WBC which responds to bacteria, viruses and fungi, produced in bone marrow and released during infection
What does a lymphocyte do?
- B-Lymphocute, mature in bone marrow
- T-lymphocyte, mature in thymus gland
What is chronic leaukaemia?
- Build up of abnormal white blood cells
- Typically takes months or years to progress
- 2 groups CLL and CML
What are the symptoms and signs of leukaemia?
- fever/chills
- fatigue and weakness
- loss of apetite and weight loss
- night sweats
- bone and joint pain
- abdominal discomfort
- headaches
- shortness of breath
- frequent infections
- easy bruising / bleeding
- petechiae
- anaemia
- leukopaenia (low wbc count)
- thrombocytopaenia (low platelet count)
- lymphadecnopathy
- hepatomegaly / splenomegaly
How is leukaemia diagnosed?
- Blood tests
- Bone marrow tests
- Staging is completed via a lymph node biopsy, lumbar puncture, CXR or a CT scan
What constitutes as complete remission from leukaemia?
– No evidence of disease after treatment
– Bone marrow contains fewer than 5% blast cells
– Blood cell counts within normal limits
– No signs or symptoms
– “Molecular” complete remission if no leukaemia cells in marrow
What constitutes as Minimal residual disease from leukaemia?
– Sensitive tests (flow cytometry or PCR) find leukaemia in marrow
When is disease still classed as active in leukaemia?
– Evidence of leukaemia during treatment
– Reappearance of disease after treatment (relapse)
– More than 5% blast cells in bone marrow
What is the philadelphia chromosome?
-Ph+
- occurs when there is a translocation of chromosome
- this creates a new BCR-ABL gene which produces a new protein
- new protein makes an enzyme, tyrosine which stimulates the production of leukaemic cells
- tyrosine inhibitors can therefore be used as treatment
What is the philadelphia chromosome?
-Ph+
- occurs when there is a translocation of chromosome
- this creates a new BCR-ABL gene which produces a new protein
- new protein makes an enzyme, tyrosine which stimulates the production of leukaemic cells
- tyrosine inhibitors can therefore be used as treatment
