Dan Lauser Period 1

 Leukemia is cancer of the blood cells. It causes many problems and is very dangerous. This disease causes the bone marrow(the part of the bone that creates blood cells) to make defective white blood cells. These white blood cells grow rapidly and do not know when to stop growing. The defective cells also do not function the same as a normal white blood cell.

 Experts do not know what causes Leukemia but the do know some risk factors.(activities in which enhance your chance of obtaining this disease) Being exposed to an abnormally amount of radiation or certain chemicals. Chemotherapy on a different type of cancer may cause this new type of cancer. Having down syndrome or another type of genetic problem also enhances the risk. Finally, even smoking can cause this dangerous disease.

 Some symptoms of Leukemia are common in other diseases such as headache, fever, fatigue, etc.. Other symptoms are things such as loss of weight without being hungry, painful abdominal section(this is a result from and enlarged spleen caused by Leukemia), joint pain or bone pain, bruising or bleeding easily, or getting infections very easily.

 Biological therapy  Radiation therapy  Stem cell transplant  If the spleen in enlarged, the removal of the spleen.

 There are over 30,000 new cases of Leukemia in America reported each year. This disease effects more adults than children. This is an interesting fact because people call the disease “disease of children”. Leukemia is more common in men than women and also more common in Caucasians compared to African Americans.

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