Without treatment, acute
However, leukemia rarely goes away without treatment. Fortunately, there are many treatment options available that can help prevent the growth and spread of cancer cells, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, and stem cell transplant.
If this disease is left untreated, a person with leukemia becomes increasingly susceptible to fatigue, excessive bleeding and infections until, finally, the body becomes virtually defenseless, making every minor injury or infection very serious. Leukemia may be fatal.
Standard ALL treatment usually takes between 2 to 3 years altogether. The maintenance phase takes up most of this time as it lasts 2 years. During the maintenance phase people are often back to work or college. If you have a stem cell or bone marrow transplant the treatment time is shorter but more intensive.
As with other types of cancer, there's currently no cure for leukemia. People with leukemia sometimes experience remission, a state after diagnosis and treatment in which the cancer is no longer detected in the body. However, the cancer may recur due to cells that remain in your body.
In CLL, the leukemia cells grow out of control and crowd out normal blood cells. These cells often build up slowly over time. Many people don't have any symptoms for at least a few years. In time, the cells can spread to other parts of the body, including the lymph nodes, liver, and spleen.
The cure rates and survival outcomes for patients with ALL have improved over the past few decades. Today, nearly 90 percent of adults diagnosed with ALL achieve a complete remission, which means that leukemia cells can no longer be seen in the bone marrow with a microscope.
A remission may be temporary or permanent. This uncertainty causes many people to worry that the leukemia will come back. While many remissions are permanent, it is important to talk with your child's doctor about the possibility of the disease returning.
In general, about 80% to 90% of adults will have complete remissions at some point during these treatments. This means leukemia cells can no longer be seen in their bone marrow. Unfortunately, about half of these patients relapse, so the overall cure rate is in the range of 40%.
If caught early, leukemia can be cured by undergoing several cancer treatments.
However, there are many varieties of leukemia, not all of which are threatening. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is, in general, one of those nonthreatening leukemias.
Many people enjoy long and healthy lives after being successfully treated for their blood cancer. Sometimes, however, the treatment can affect a person's health for months or even years after it has finished. Some side effects may not be evident until years after treatment has ceased. These are called 'late effects'.
The survival rates are highest for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The rates vary depending on person's age, the type of leukemia they have, and if (and how far) the leukemia has spread at the time of diagnosis. A child who has lived at least five years after a diagnosis of acute leukemia is probably cured.
Because of advances in diagnosis and treatment of this disease, APL is now considered the most curable form of adult leukemia. Cure rates of 90 percent have been reported from centers specializing in APL treatment.
Chemotherapy is the major form of treatment for leukemia. This drug treatment uses chemicals to kill leukemia cells. Depending on the type of leukemia you have, you may receive a single drug or a combination of drugs. These drugs may come in a pill form, or they may be injected directly into a vein.
People may receive maintenance therapy to help keep the cancer in remission, but chronic leukemia can seldom be cured with chemotherapy. However, stem cell transplants offer some people with chronic leukemia the chance for cure.
The 5-year survival rate for people age 20 and older is 40%. The 5-year survival rate for people under age 20 is 89%. Recent advances in treatment have significantly lengthened the lives of people with ALL. However, survival rates depend on several factors, including biologic features of the disease and a person's age.
Relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or relapsed ALL, refers to the return of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in patients who have already undergone treatment for the disease. Between 15 and 20 percent of children who are treated for ALL and achieve an initial complete remission will have the disease return.
They may happen if the initial treatment doesn't eliminate all cancer cells or if cancer cells become resistant to the treatment. There are a variety of treatment options available for relapsed leukemia. Some examples include immunotherapy, stem cell transplants, or chemotherapy.
Your doctor will need to do tests to find out if you've had a relapse or if something else is going on. You might have some of the same tests as when you were first diagnosed: Blood tests. These tests check the numbers of normal blood cells and leukemia cells in a sample of blood taken from your vein.
The onset of leukemia can be acute (sudden onset) or chronic (slow onset). In acute leukemia, cancer cells multiply quickly. In chronic leukemia, the disease progresses slowly and early symptoms may be very mild.
Acute leukemia symptoms can often appear suddenly
With acute leukemia, symptoms tend to develop very quickly. You may suddenly spike a fever that won't go away, develop an infection for no apparent reason, or start bleeding spontaneously from your nose or gums and not be able to stop it.
Chronic leukemia usually gets worse slowly, over months to years, while acute leukemia develops quickly and progresses over days to weeks. The two main types of leukemia can be further organized into groups that are based on the type of white blood cell that is affected — lymphoid or myeloid.
Age-specific incidence rates fall gradually from age 0-4 and remain stable throughout childhood and early adulthood, rates rise sharply from around age 55-59. The highest rates are in in the 85 to 89 age group for females and males. Incidence rates are significantly lower in females than males in most age groups.