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Leukemia Leukemia Basics

Leukemia Explained

Summary & Participants

A routine check-up may find that you have too many white blood cells, a sign of leukemia. What can be done? Learn about leukemia and how new treatments are providing hope.

Medically Reviewed On: July 15, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Leukemia, a cancer of white blood cells is diagnosed in about 29,000 adults and 2,000 children each year in the US.

NEIL SHAH, MD: Leukemia is really defined as the overproduction of white blood cells; it's a blood disorder caused by, essentially, an abnormality in cells in the bone marrow. What makes it a cancer is that the cells have a failure to become normal. So they accumulate in an immature stage and they don't serve any useful function.

ANNOUNCER: The types of leukemia are categorized by how quickly the disease develops: chronic leukemia, which develops slowly; and acute leukemia, which quickly worsens, and is a more aggressive form of the disease.

BRIAN DRUKER, MD: When I think about chronic leukemia I like to explain it as there are too many blood cells. They generally function normally, but what they often do is they crowd out the normal cells from the bone marrow. With acute leukemia, however, not only are there too many blood cells, but they don't mature normally. So you accumulate in the bone marrow immature blood cells that don't function very well at all.

ANNOUNCER: Leukemia is also grouped by the types of white blood cells affected. The disease can arise in the myeloid cells or the lymphoid cells.

NEIL SHAH, MD: We have chronic myeloid leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia. So we consider those four categories of leukemia.

ANNOUNCER: Each form of leukemia occurs at different rates in the population. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common form strikes about 10,000 people a year. Acute myeloid leukemia, 8000 a year. Chronic myeloid leukemia about 5000 a year. And acute lymphocytic leukemia about 4000 a year. Adult leukemia can affect any age group but is most common in older patients.

Adult leukemia can affect any age group but is most common in older patients.

BRIAN DRUKER, MD: With chronic myeloid leukemia, the average age of onset is 50 to 60 and it's quite similar with all of the other types of acute leukemia.

The most common leukemia in children is acute lymphocytic leukemia and there are about 2,000 cases per year of that in children, and also about 2,000 cases per year in adults. In the children, it affects younger children, generally between ages 2 and 4.

ANNOUNCER: What causes leukemia? While there isn't an exact cause, there are some known factors.

NEIL SHAH, MD: We know that there are some risk factors for the development of leukemia, such as exposure, sometimes to chemotherapy, sometimes exposure to radiation. The vast majority of patients, however, don't have any clearly identifiable risk factor.

BRIAN DRUKER, MD: It's certainly not thought to be inherited. It's an acquired disorder that you pick up an abnormality in the bone marrow.

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