Symptoms and Cure of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
The disease begins when one or more lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell, become malignant, or life-threatening. Instead of maturing and dying in the normal way, the leukemic cell multiplies and produces more of its kind. These also produce leukemic cells, and so on. After some time, perhaps several years, the leukemic cells gradually crowd out normal white blood cells in the lymph glands, and reduce the ability of the remaining healthy cells to fight infections. The leukemic cells also overflow from the lymph glands into the bloodstream, and from there into the spleen, the liver, the bone marrow and other parts of the body. As the number of leukemic cells in the marrow rises, they interfere increasingly with the ability of the marrow to produce other blood cells. This leads to a number of problems, including anemia, susceptibility to infections. and bleeding.
What are the Symptoms?
The disease often produces no symptoms for awhile and is most often discovered by a blood test done for another purpose. In some cases, the first signs of the illness are enlarged lymph glands in the neck, armpits, or groin, or a feeling of fullness in the upper left portion of the abdomen, due to an enlarged spleen. In other cases of the disease, the first symptoms may be those that are caused by anemia or infection. In some cases, general ill health, loss of appetite and weight, fever, and sweating at night are the first indications of the disease.
What should be Done?
Anyone who has some of the symptoms listed above should see a physician, who can arrange for a blood sample to be taken and tested. If you do have the disease, other tests can determine it extent.
What is the Treatment?
When the disease is in an early stage, you do not require any treatment, and only periodic checkups are necessary. Treatment is required, however, when symptoms or signs of the disease appear, such as significant increases in the size of your lymph glands, spleen or liver; anemia; a low platelet count in your blood; or fever and weight loss.
The treatment your physician will probably use initially for chronic lymphocytic leukemia is an anticancer drug that is very well tolerated and is usually effective in eliminating or greatly reducing most symptoms of the disease. Your enlarged lymph glands and your spleen will probably decrease in size. Your blood count will improve, and your symptoms will go away. If this drug is ineffective, or if it stops working after a period of successful treatment, you will probably be treated with a combination of other anticancer drugs. These often produce improvement again.
The average life span after a diagnosis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia is three to four years. However, if you have this disease and you either do not need treatment or respond to it very well, you have a good chance of living much longer.