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Types of Blood Cancer: A Comprehensive Guide
By Raveena M Prakash
Blood cancer disrupts the normal production and function of blood cells in the body. These cells give you energy and help to fight infection; additionally, they protect you from losing a lot of blood during any injury. Blood cancers mostly affect blood cells and bone marrow; this is a spongy tissue found inside the bones where blood cells are often made. These cancers mostly change the way cells act and how well they work. If you are concerned about whether blood cancer is curable or not, then read further; this blog is for you!
In this article, we’ll explore how to cure blood cancer, types of cancer, diagnosis, treatments, and prevention!
What is blood cancer?
Blood cancer affects how your body produces blood cells and how these cells are functioning. The majority of cancer starts in the bone marrow. This is a soft, sponge-like material present in the center of the bones.
Types of Blood cancer
There are three types of blood cancer types and each type of cancer comes with several subtypes.
- Leukemia
- Lymphoma
- Myleoma
Leukemia
Leukemia is a common cancer that typically forms in the blood cells or bone marrow. In the majority of cases, leukemia produces a large amount of white blood cells, which often helps to battle against infections. Once these white blood cells start to grow out of control in the body, it makes it hard for the body to control bleeding and fight any infections.
Leukemia types may include:
- Acute myeloid leukemia
- Acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Chronic myeloid leukemia
- Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
- Childhood leukemia
Common Symptoms of leukemia
Leukemia symptoms can often vary depending upon the types of leukemia in a person. Here are some of the common leukemia signs and symptoms.
These may include:
- Fever and experiencing chills
- Experiencing fatigue and weakness
- Frequent or severe infections
- Sudden weight loss
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Enlarged liver or spleen
- Easily bruised and bleeding
- Recurrent nose bleeds
- Experiencing tiny red spots in your skin
- Excessive sweating at night
- Bone pain or tenderness
Lymphoma
Lymphoma is another type of cancer, which mostly affects the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is a part of the body’s immune system, which is also known as lymphocytes.
Types of lymphoma may include:
- Hodgkin Lymphoma
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Cutaneous lymphoma
- Childhood lymphoma
Common symptoms of Lymphoma
Lymphoma symptoms can often vary from person to person. In some cases, patients might not have any symptoms for a long period of time.
Signs and symptoms of lymphoma may include:
- Fever
- Experiencing night sweats
- Fatigue
- Loss of appetite
- Sudden weight loss
- Experiencing dry, itchy skin and red rashes
- Nausea, vomiting
- Abdominal pain
- Headache
- Experiencing confusion
- Weakness in the arms or legs
- Coughing or shortness of breath
- Painless swelling of lymph nodes in the belly, neck, armpits and groin
- Feeling filled in the abdomen
- An enlarged liver or spleen
- Pain in the abdomen, chest or bones
Myleoma
Myeloma is another type of cancer that often develops when a collection of plasma cells, which normally helps the body to produce antibodies, later forms tumors in the bone marrow. The tumor generally prevents normal reproduction of healthy cells especially blood in the body. Myeloma is also known as bone marrow cancer or plasma cell myeloma.
Multiple myeloma is the most common subtypes.
Rare type of Blood cancer
While leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma are some of the most common types of blood or hematologic cancer. There are some other rare types of cancer found in people.
These may include:
- Myelodysplastic Syndromes(MDS): A group of disorders caused when something changed the production of blood cells. This type of cancer is also known as dysfunctional blood cells production.
- Myeloproliferative Neoplasms(MPN):This is a rare, life-threatening cancer which often affects your bone marrow which makes a lot of blood cells. In some cases, myeloproliferative Neoplasms are a highly rare type of disease. It involves abnormal cell growth.
- Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia: This is another rare type of lymphoma with high levels of IgM antibodies.
Causes and risk factors
While the exact causes of developing blood cancers are not clear yet. This type of cancer is often caused by changes and disruptions or mutations in the DNA within blood cells. This makes the blood cells start behaving abnormally. In the majority of the cases, these changes are linked to things that can’t be out of control.
There are some risk factors that contribute:
- Smoking
- Exposure to cancer-causing chemicals or radiation
- Family history of cancer
- Rare genetic syndromes
- Weak immune system
- Infections such as Epstein-Barr virus
Diagnosis and treatment options
Diagnosing cancer in blood usually starts with your oncologist asking about several signs and symptoms you are facing. If any suspected patient finds any symptoms, these might lead to performing a physical examination and several tests.
These may include:
Blood tests: There are several types of tests, such as complete blood count (CBC) tests, to check high to low blood levels.
Imaging tests: There are some imaging tests used to check your cancer symptoms in a suspected patient. These tests might include CT scans, MRIs, and PET scans.
Bone marrow biopsy: In this test, they might remove a sample of tissue from the bone marrow and analyze how many normal cells and abnormal cells you have.
Treatment option
There is a wide range of treatments available for the cure of hematologic cancer. In some cases, you might receive one treatment or number of the treatment options to cure your cancer; these mainly depend on the type of cancer and stage.
Some common treatments may include:
- Chemotherapy
- Radiotherapy
- Immunotherapy
- Targeted therapies
- Stem cell transplantation
Consult Today
Understanding several types of blood or hematologic cancer helps to empower you to take control of your health or support a loved one. While hearing you are diagnosed with cancer is often overwhelming and always alarming to anyone. However, treating your cancer with the right treatment and following a healthy lifestyle helps people to lead fulfilling lives.
If you or any loved ones of yours might notice any symptoms or family history of cancer in blood, visit Oncare Cancer Center’s website and book an appointment today!
Get a personalized consultation from our experienced cancer specialists, and get an estimated cost of your cancer surgery today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, the chances of curing blood cancer are increasingly high, especially when diagnosed and treated in the early stages of cancer. It means that the blood cancer is recovered and the chance of recurrence is low. When a cure and treatment are not possible, there are a lot of cancer treatments that can put the blood cancer into remission. Remission is a state where the treatment might decrease cancer to the point that it's undetectable.
An oncologist might ask about your symptoms and signs, which you might observe in your body. If needed, they might perform a physical examination.
There are some tests used to diagnose blood cancer:
- Blood tests:
- Imaging tests such as MRIs, CT scans, and PET scans
- Bone marrow biopsy
There are certain risk factors which might increase the chance of blood cancer.
These may include:
- Age
- Gender
- Smoking
- Exposure to toxic chemicals
- Previous cancer treatments
- Family history of cancer
- Certain auto immune diseases
Blood cancer symptoms might vary based on the type of cancer. The most common symptoms may include:
- Fatigue
- Experiencing shortness of breath
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Experiencing frequent infections
There are some other symptoms, which might include
- Experiencing bone pain
- Experiencing night pain
- Enlarged spleen or liver
- Joint pain
- Continuous fevers
- Sudden weight loss
- Unusual bruising or bleeding
- Tiny red skin spots