Leukemia does not respect age or gender

• May 9, 2024

The leukemia cause 55% of deaths related to blood cancer in Mexico, several specialists revealed during the National Day of Fight Against Leukemia and warned about the need for young adults are made blood test periodically to detect the presence of chronic myeloid leukemia , one of the most frequent types in the adult population and that the majority do not know that it suffers.

What is leukemia and how many types are there

According to the National Institutes of Health of the United States, leukemia refers to a group of cancers that start in the hematopoietic cells of the bone marrow.

In an interview for GetQoralHealth , the hematologist Eduardo Terreros Muñoz explains what is leukemia and some causes:

The term "leukemia" literally means "white blood". We all know that white blood cells (leukocytes) are produced in the bone marrow and the body uses them to fight infections and other foreign substances. However, for reasons still unknown, leukemia leads to an uncontrollable increase in the number of white blood cells immature (or blasts ). Over time, these cancerous blasts fill the bone marrow and prevent healthy red blood cells, platelets and leukocytes from being produced.

It is in this phase where life-threatening symptoms can occur: the blastocysts spill out of the marrow into the bloodstream and the lymphatic system. They can also travel to the brain and to the spinal cord (the central nervous system) and other parts of the body. Leukemias are divided into two major types: acute (which progresses rapidly with many immature white blood cells) and chronic (which progresses more slowly and has more mature white blood cells). The specific types of the condition are five: acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and hairy cell leukemia.

Leukemia in Mexico

According to Dr. David Gómez Almaguer , President of The Mexican Association for the Study of Hematology , in Mexico there are 10 thousand new patients with leukemia and related diseases that diagnose every year . For historical reasons, this is a cancer that is not treated by oncologists, but by hematologists.