Posts Tagged ‘Hairy cell leukemia’
Treatment of Hairy Cell Leukemia
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General aspects on the treatment
Some people with hairy cell leukemia have few symptoms and require no immediate treatment. There are treatments for all patients with hairy cell leukemia with symptoms. Uses three kinds of treatment:
- Surgery
- Chemotherapy (using drugs to kill cancer cells)
- Biological therapy (using the body’s immune system to fight cancer).
Some clinical trials are evaluating the use of bone marrow transplants. If the spleen is swollen, the doctor may remove a surgical operation called a splenectomy.
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells. These can be taken orally or injected into a vein, muscle or under the skin. Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment because the drug enters the bloodstream, travels through the body and can kill cancer cells throughout the body.
The purpose of biologic therapy is to try to get the body to fight cancer. It uses materials made by the body or made in a laboratory to boost, direct or restore the body’s natural defenses against disease.
Biological therapy is known as biological response modifier (BRM) therapy or immunotherapy. Interferon, a substance produced by the body to fight the organisms that are not normally found in the body, often used to treat hairy cell leukemia.
Bone marrow transplantation is used to replace bone marrow with a healthy one. First, it destroys all the body’s bone marrow with high dose chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy. Then he takes healthy bone marrow from another person (a donor) whose tissue is equal or nearly equal to his. The donor may be a twin (the ideal), a brother or sister or other person with whom you have no kinship.
Finally, the donor’s healthy marrow is injected into a vein you and replace the destroyed bone marrow. A bone marrow transplant that used bone marrow from a relative or a person who has no relationship to you is called allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.
Hairy cell leukemia
Hairy cell leukemia is a disease in which cells are cancerous (malignant) in the blood and bone marrow. The disease is called hairy cell leukemia because the cancer cells look “hair” when examined under the microscope.
Hairy cell leukemia affects white blood cells known as lymphocytes, produced in the bone marrow and other organs. Bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside large bones of the body.
It produces red blood cells (which carry oxygen and other materials to all tissues of the body), white blood cells (which fight infection) and platelets (which cause blood to clot).
Lymphocytes are also produced in the spleen (an organ located in the upper abdomen that produces lymphocytes and filters old blood cells from the blood), lymph nodes (small bean-shaped structures found throughout the body ) and other organs.
When developing hairy cell leukemia, there may be an accumulation of leukemic cells in the spleen, causing it to swell. Can also occur if there are too few normal white blood cells in the blood because the leukemia cells invade the bone marrow, and bone marrow is unable to produce enough normal white blood cells. This can cause an infection.
Posted in Leukemia | 
Tags: bone marrow, Cancer, cancer cells, Hairy cell leukemia, Lymphocytes, white blood cells | 
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Hairy Cell Leukemia: Treatment by stage
You might consider using a treatment considered standard based on its effectiveness in patients in past studies, or may choose to take part in a clinical trial. Not all patients are cured with standard therapy and some standard treatments may have more side effects than are desired.
For these reasons, clinical trials are designed to find better ways to treat cancer patients and are based on the latest information. They are conducting clinical trials in many countries for patients with hairy cell leukemia.
Hairy cell leukemia untreated
Treatment may be one of the following:
If you do not have symptoms, you may not need treatment. The doctor will monitor carefully in order to treat leukemia case worse.
- Biological therapy.
- Chemotherapy.
- Surgery to remove the spleen (splenectomy).
Posted in Leukemia | Tags: Cancer, cancer cell, Hairy cell leukemia, leukimia, leukimia treatments, patients with hairy cell leukemia | No Comments »
Stages of Hairy Cell Leukemia
There is no classification system for hairy cell leukemia. Patients were grouped depending on whether or not they have received treatment for leukemia.
Hairy cell leukemia without treatment
There is no treatment administered to treat leukemia, but may have been given some treatment for infections or other side effects of leukemia.
Progressive hairy cell leukemia
It has carried out an operation to remove the spleen (splenectomy) or has administered a systemic therapy (treatment which uses substances that travel through the bloodstream to reach certain cells in the body and change) but the leukemia is worse.