Search Results for: blog types of leukemia

Mom Removes Daughter with Leukemia from Hospital

A mother has removed her eleven year old daughter from a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. The child has leukemia. She also has a heart catheter in place, and could die if she doesn’t go back to the hospital soon. At the time I am writing this blog, police do not know where the child has been taken to. Leukemia is a serious condition. It is the cancer of the blood forming tissues in the body, including the bone marrow, and the lymphatic system. There are many types of leukemia, including some forms that are more common in children than in … Continue reading →

Risk Factors for Leukemia

Doctors often can’t explain why one person develops leukemia and another person does not. Research has pointed to certain risk factors that can increase a person’s chances of developing this cancer, even though the exact causes are still a mystery. Exposure to high levels of radiation. This includes people who have been exposed to nuclear power plant accidents and atomic bomb detonations. This also includes people who have been exposed to extremely high levels of radiation as part of a medical treatment. Most radiation used for diagnosis is a very low level and is not linked to leukemia. Exposure to … Continue reading →

Types of Leukemia

Your bone marrow produces three types of blood cell: red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Red blood cells carry oxygen through the body. White blood cells help fight infection. Platelets help with clotting. In people with leukemia, the bone marrow produces abnormal white blood cells. These abnormal cells may work normally at first, but can crowd out normal, healthy blood cells and make it difficult for blood to do its work. Leukemia can be divided into two groups, depending on how quickly the disease develops and progresses: Chronic leukemia gets worse slowly. Abnormal blood cells can still do … Continue reading →

Talia’s Makeup Tips are a Big Hit on YouTube

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Talia Joy Castellano is 13 years old and has about four months to live. She has two different types of cancer. One thing that brings her some joy is the YouTube videos she creates where she teaches people how to apply makeup. She wants to continue them as long as she can. Not all parents will allow their 13 year old daughter to wear makeup. This is one of the most common fights that parents and pre-teens, or teenagers, have. The teen or pre-teen wants to look cool, and feels the need to visually indicate that she is not a … Continue reading →

Hellboy Made Zachary’s Wish Come True

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It is pretty amazing what the Make-A-Wish Foundation can do! Six year old Zachary’s wish was to meet Hellboy, and also to become Hellboy himself. It takes some creativity to fulfill a wish that involves a comic book character, but, they managed to make it come true. I love hearing happy stories like this one! Zachary is six years old. He has been undergoing treatment for leukemia. According to the Mayo Clinic, leukemia “is cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues, including the bone marrow and the lymphatic system. Many types of leukemia exist. Some forms of leukemia are more common … Continue reading →

Cancer: Local Spread vs. Metastasis

One of the most insidious things about cancer is the way it can spread. I’m not especially a fan of the way it can keep coming back after treatment, either, but that’s a story for another day. The American Cancer Society talks about two different types of spread: local or regional spread and metastasis. Local or regional spread is when a cancer extends beyond the organ in which it started. For example, a very large breast cancer could spread into the lymph nodes in the armpit or the lungs. Metastasis means that the cancer has moved to an entirely new … Continue reading →

What are Bleeding Disorders?

Blood clotting (also known as coagulation) is how the body controls bleeding — it changes blood from a liquid to a solid. Proteins in the blood work together to stop bleeding. But if a person is missing or lacking in certain proteins, they may have a bleeding disorder. The term “bleeding disorder” covers a wide range of problems that all have one result: poor clotting and prolonged bleeding. Your doctor may refer to a bleeding disorder as coagulopathy, abnormal bleeding, or clotting disorder. Other things can cause bleeding disorders besides clotting protein deficiency: Defects in the blood vessels Abnormalities in … Continue reading →

Dogs Helping to Refine Human Cancer Treatments

Approximately six million dogs are diagnosed with cancer each year. Companion animals with cancer can be used by researchers as models for human cancer, to help develop new treatments for man and animal alike. Comparative oncology isn’t a new idea. Dogs were used for testing bone marrow transplant techniques in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, dogs were used to test limb-saving treatments for bone cancer. In 2003, the National Cancer Institute formally founded the Comparative Oncology Program, which aims to use pets to learn more about cancer — and to test and refine new therapies that … Continue reading →

Tropical Periwinkle

Have you heard of tropical periwinkle? If you’re looking for home remedies, look elsewhere. This plant is too strong for home or amateur use, but has great promise as a medicinal plant in professional hands. Eli Lilly and Company came across tropical periwinkle in a survey of plants popular in folk remedies. Extracts from tropical periwinkle leaves were able to prolong the lives of lab mice with leukemia! The extracts were used to develop two cancer-fighting drugs: vinblastine sulfate (Velban) and vincristine sulfate (Oncovin). Vinblastine sulfate is used to treat certain types of skin and lymph cancer. Vincristine sulfate is … Continue reading →

Embryo Adoption, Part Two

My last blog was on a relatively new type of adoption, embryo adoption. The visibility of embryo adoption will, I predict, increase quite a bit for three reasons. The increased debate about stem cells will impact people’s awareness of and beliefs about frozen embryos, which are a main source of embryonic stem cells. Some scientists say that embryonic stem cells, which have not yet differentiated into different types of tissues, will be the most useful for treating diseases (although non-embryonic stem cells, obtained from blood, umbilical cords or other tissue, have already been used to treat aplastic anemia, and other … Continue reading →