Cancer and Healthy

In essence leukemia begins in the bone marrow where blood cells are made. Therefore, this form of cancer can spread quickly through the body, which ultimately affects other organs such as the lymph nodes, bone marrow, brains and spleens. When leukemia is diagnosed as acute, that means that the disease spreads rapidly.

For more information about the different types of treatments used to treat acute leukemia, read on.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is used for two purposes. The first is to operate the treatment of leukemia and kill cancer cells in the spinal fluid and brains. The second way in which radiation therapy is used as a prevention method - especially to prevent the cancer returning to various parts of the body after chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy

The main treatments for leukemia his chemo treatments. Phases of induction chemotherapy include - if the treatment is focused on the killing of most of the leukemic cells; consolidation - the stage of a different type of chemotherapy is given to kill off any remaining leukemia cells, and maintenance of the stage where low doses are administered to acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients to prevent recurrence.

Remission induction

Patients who are diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) normal remission induction treatments, which cytrabine and an anthracycline. Because remission induction is so intense, it is often subjected to an in-patient basis.

Typically, a course of remission induction will only between 5 and 7 days. However, because most of the body healthy bone marrow cells are destroyed in the course of treatment, the patient must undergo a long residence time in the hospital after treatment.

For acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), treatment is a combination of anthracycline and vincristine and prednisone. This combination reduces the amount of bone marrow damage, and patients can generally expect shorter hospital stays.

Consolidation Therapy

After the first remission induction, the patient will undergo the so-called consolidation therapy. This is designed to destroy any remaining cancer cells and thus prevent a recurrence.

Maintenance Chemotherapy

Maintenance therapy is used only in patients with ALL. The therapy is a combination of methotrexate and oral mercaptopurine together with all other necessary medicines.

Central nervous system treatment

Because everyone will be able to come back into the spinal fluid or brains, some patients treated with methotrexate, which is administered through a spinal tap or, in some cases, radiation therapy to the brains.

The transplantation of stem cells

The transplantation of stem cells is a serious procedure, but one that is often used in younger patients with a poor prognosis. Adult patients under the age of 50 years, usually undergo stem cell transplants for leukemia treatment as they leukemia relapses.