Daily Health Care

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.

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