Leukemia begins to develop with a malfunction of bone marrow cells, which are responsible for providing the human body with antitumor immunity. This violation is fraught with serious consequences. In simple terms, the failed cell is then divided into thousands of those that spread throughout the body, affecting the lungs, kidneys, heart, liver, and lymph nodes. This is what acute blood leukemia is manifested in.
How many live with such a disease, is it possible to stop its development, what needs to be done? There are a lot of questions in this topic, and you should try to find the answer to everything.
Background and Symptoms
So far, doctors have not figured out the exact reasons that provoke the development of leukemia. Each year, about 35 new cases are recorded per 1 million people. The structure of this mutation is very complex and depends on many purely individual nuances. However, the doctors who managed to isolate the factors that could provoke its occurrence were able to isolate. So, a mutation may occur due to:
- exposure to increased radiation;
- hazardous work;
- hereditary predisposition;
- prolonged chemotherapy;
- smoking;
- chromosomal diseases;
- heavy viruses (HIV, for example);
- chemical poisons contained in air or food.
All these factors can trigger acute blood leukemia. But how many live with this disease? If you pay attention to the symptoms in time and seek help, you can extend your existence. The patient should be worried about the occurrence of increased weakness, fatigue, uncontrolled jumps in body temperature, sweating at night, frequent headaches, sudden weight loss, pallor of the skin and lack of appetite. More specific symptoms include frequent bruising, pain in bones and joints, dry skin with icteric color, a small rash, blurred vision, poor wound healing, troubled urination and shortness of breath.
How long does the patient have?
The answer to this question depends on the stage of the disease. It must be understood that in the case of a diagnosis of acute blood leukemia , how many patients live is unequivocally difficult to answer. Conditionally, there are 3 forms of this disease. So, the first one has the least risk, and they live with it for about 10 years. In the second form, life expectancy will be about 5-8 years. But if the degree of risk is high, then the life expectancy will not exceed 3 years.
The fact is that the acute form of the disease progresses faster than the chronic one. But acute leukemia is not a sentence. If you notice changes in the body in time and seek help.
Severe cases
With a particularly neglected form of a disease such as acute leukemia, the duration of life is minimal. A person has three years left, no more. But, fortunately, such cases are rare. Typically, severely ill patients are elderly. That is, older than 70 years of age or those who have serious genetic mutations in their cells.
There is very little time left for people with another cancer. And also in patients with an overestimated level of blast cells. In such cases, it is recommended to combine fortifying therapy, chemotherapy and a healthy lifestyle to prolong life.
Complications
Still, the fact that there are cases in which medicine is powerless cannot be denied. The prognosis is disappointing if there are fungal settlements in the human body along with infections. They are resistant to even the most powerful antibacterial drugs. There are cases in which the human body is so weak that the loss of immunity becomes incompatible with his life.
If the patient revealed a form of leukemia, previously not described in medicine, then most likely, nothing will be done. It is not amenable to either radiation or chemical therapy. Remission in this case is not achievable, and because of this, bone marrow transplantation becomes impossible.
In addition, sudden bleeding and latent brain aneurysms can lead to death. Also, a fatal outcome can occur if a person has an infectious complication with a weakened immune system.
Recovery
But recovery is also real, and this cannot but rejoice. According to statistics, the chances of a full recovery with timely treatment usually range from 50% in adults to 95% in children. With a successful stem cell transplant, cure occurs in 60% of cases.
In general, statistics can tell a lot about acute blood leukemia. How many live with this disease? If the blast crisis stage has occurred, which occurs when the ailment passes from a chronic form, then the life expectancy is reduced to 6-12 months. Fatal outcome in such cases comes from complications.
Talking about how long, according to statistics, people with leukemia live, one important point should be noted. The probability of death is 90% if the disease is not treated. And people with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, who started treatment on time and follow the recommendations of doctors, recover in 85-95% of cases.
A more serious disease is its myeloid form. In such cases, the number of patients recovered is 40-50%. The use of stem cell transplantation allows to increase this percentage to 55-60%.
Diagnostics
There are three ways in which acute leukemia (leukemia, blood cancer) is determined. How many patients subsequently live, also depends on a competent diagnosis and identification of the features of the course of the disease.
The simplest method is to donate blood for a general analysis. By the way, often an ailment is detected during a routine examination. A decrease in hemoglobin, platelet count and high white blood cell count cannot but arouse suspicion by the doctor.
The second method is specific. Implies bone marrow aspiration. The doctor removes cells from it to be examined under a microscope in a laboratory setting. The bone marrow can only be reached by piercing the outer layer of the bone with a special needle. Naturally, anesthesia is used.
And the third is called a bone marrow biopsy. He is the most difficult. Because the doctor removes a small part of the bone along with the bone marrow.
The path to healing
Treatment includes three stages. The first involves intensive care of bone marrow disturbances. Chemotherapy helps eliminate blast cells. Of course, cytostatics are unsafe, but an alternative has not yet been developed.
Then follows the consolidation of remission, lasting about six months. The patient is prescribed procedures and drugs aimed at preventing the proliferation of cancer cells, which could not be eliminated during chemotherapy. The last step involves maintenance therapy.
Proper treatment is really capable of prolonging life. There are many people who have not been broken even by such a serious illness as acute blood leukemia. How many live, the reviews of doctors and patients will not help to establish unambiguously, but it is important to remember that it is worth fighting this ailment without giving up. And then the cancer will recede.