By looking at a sample of your blood, your doctor can determine if you have abnormal levels of red or white blood cells or platelets — which may suggest leukemia. A blood test may also show the presence of leukemia cells, though not all types of leukemia cause the leukemia cells to circulate in the blood.
Acute leukemias — which are incredibly rare — are the most rapidly progressing cancer we know of. The white cells in the blood grow very quickly, over a matter of days to weeks. Sometimes a patient with acute leukemia has no symptoms or has normal blood work even a few weeks or months before the diagnosis.
These are immature cells that otherwise would become white blood cells, red blood cells, or platelets. Blood tests are an important tool in diagnosing leukemia. Although they can strongly suggest leukemia, your doctor will most likely order bone marrow tests to confirm the diagnosis and identify the leukemia type.
Bone marrow test.
During bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, a needle is used to remove a sample of bone marrow from the hipbone or breastbone. The sample is sent to a lab for testing to look for leukemia cells.
Aside from leukemia, most cancers cannot be detected in routine blood work, such as a CBC test. However, specific blood tests are designed to identify tumor markers, which are chemicals and proteins that may be found in the blood in higher quantities than normal when cancer is present.
Leukemia can produce a variety of symptoms, although most are not often apparent in the earliest stages of the malignancy. The most common symptoms of leukemia—fatigue, pale skin, weight loss and night sweats—are often attributed to other less serious conditions, such as the flu.
ALL starts in the bone marrow (the soft inner part of certain bones, where new blood cells are made). Most often, the leukemia cells invade the blood fairly quickly.
Doctors diagnose acute leukemia slightly differently than they do chronic leukemia. Acute leukemia often requires a bone marrow biopsy, which checks for the number of blast cells. This is not always necessary for diagnosing chronic leukemia. Learn what to expect during a bone marrow biopsy here.
Leukemia Misdiagnosis
Physicians often fail to diagnose chronic leukemia, as it often shows no symptoms until the disease has begun to progress. Many of the symptoms of leukemia may also be symptoms of other illnesses, which results in a high number of misdiagnoses.
People often feel ill quite quickly. Most symptoms of acute leukaemia are caused by leukaemia cells filling the bone marrow. This means healthy blood cells do not move into the blood as normal.
Cancers (including ALL) can be caused by mutations (changes) that turn on oncogenes or turn off tumor suppressor genes. These types of changes can stop bone marrow cells from maturing the way they normally would, or help the cells grow out of control.
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a type of blood cancer. It starts from white blood cells called lymphocytes in the bone marrow. The bone marrow is the soft inner part of the bones, where new blood cells are made. ALL usually develops quickly over days or weeks.
Some symptoms, like night sweats, fever, fatigue and achiness, resemble flu-like symptoms. Unlike symptoms of the flu, which generally subside as you get better, leukemia symptoms generally last longer than two weeks, and may include sudden weight loss, bone and joint pain and easy bleeding or bruising.
"A patient may be tested for leukemia if he or she has unexplained weight loss, night sweats or fatigue, or if he or she bruises or bleeds easily," Dr. Siddon says. "Sometimes routine blood work shows an unexplained elevated number of white blood cells."
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.
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.
Pancreatic cancer doesn't garner much treatment success for a number of reasons: It's hard to detect early. The pancreas is deep within the body so there aren't signs people can detect easily. The disease spreads quickly to other nearby organs, including liver, intestines, and gall bladder.
Blood Tests
A low level of red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets may indicate that the lymphoma is present in the bone marrow and/or blood.
Hodgkin lymphoma is an uncommon cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, which is a network of vessels and glands spread throughout your body. The lymphatic system is part of your immune system.
Leukemia starts in the soft, inner part of the bones (bone marrow), but often moves quickly into the blood. It can then spread to other parts of the body, such as the lymph nodes, spleen, liver, central nervous system and other organs.
Bone pain can occur in leukemia patients when the bone marrow expands from the accumulation of abnormal white blood cells and may manifest as a sharp pain or a dull pain, depending on the location. The long bones of the legs and arms are the most common location to experience this pain.
Overall, about 4 of every 10 cases of ALL are in adults. ALL is not a common cancer, accounting for less than half of 1% of all cancers in the United States. The average person's lifetime risk of getting ALL is about 1 in 1,000.
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.