Leukemia

The term leukemia (Greek leukos λευκός, "white"; αίμα aima, "blood") is a set of malignancies (cancer / cancer) that affect the blood and bone marrow origin have.

In 2012, in Brazil, INCA estimates that there were about 4,500 men and 4,000 women affected. In 2010 leukemia caused about 6000 vítimas.1 According INCA in 2008 occurred in the world about 351 000 new cases and 257 000 deaths from leukemia.

Causes

There is no single cause for all types of leukemia. Each type of leukemia has its own cause. It is suspected to be caused by several factors, including: genetics, appearance after contamination by certain types of viruses, radiation, pollution, chemotherapy among others. Sometimes, it is thought much about the low immunity (where cells can destroy cancer cells) or a failure in the immune system that causes some abnormal cells were not destroyed and recur, initiating the cancer. Can not be determined accurately as leukemia is triggered on a specific individual, but you can check through your own history the possible cause.

Treatment

How often do not know the cause of leukemia, the treatment aims to destroy the leukemia cells to the bone marrow to produce normal cells again. Great progress for total cure leukemia was achieved with the combination of drugs (poliquimoterapia), control of infectious and hemorrhagic complications and preventing or combating the disease in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). For some cases, it is indicated by bone marrow transplantation.

The treatment is done in several phases.

• The first aims to achieve complete remission, that is, a state of normality apparent that obtained after apoliquimioterapia. The most commonly used chemotherapeutic agents are cytarabine (100-200 mg / m² for 7 days) and daunorubicin (30-60 mg / m² for 3 days). This scheme is known as 7 +3. This result is achieved between one and two months after the start of treatment (induction phase of remission) when tests show no more leukemic cells. This occurs when the blood and bone marrow (morphologic remission) and physical examination (clinical remission) did not demonstrate more abnormalities.

However, surveys show that there are still many leukemic cells in the body (residual disease), which requires further treatment for no relapse of the disease. In the following steps, treatment varies with the type of leukemia (myeloid and lymphoid) and may last for more than two years at least lymphoid and myeloid in a year.

There are three phases:

• consolidation (intensive treatment with substances not previously employed);

• reinduction (repetition of the drugs used in induction of remission) and

• maintenance (treatment is milder and continuing for several months).

Being an aggressive multidrug therapy may be required hospitalization of the patient in cases of infection due to the decline of normal white blood cells by the treatment.