Cancer Leukemia Is a Type

¶ … Cancer

Leukemia is a type of cancer that attacks a person when one's own body in effect turns against him. The body as a normal chain of events produces cells called "lymphocytes" (Cotterill, (www.cancerindex.org),that are supposed to protect the body from infection. But, sometimes these lymphocytes do not mature in a proper manner, and they become too numerous in the body's blood supply and in the bone marrow. When this happens, it is called acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Another kind of leukemia, according to www.cancerindex.org, is acute myeloid leukemia, when the body's stem cells produce white blood cells that are called "myeloid blasts." Whereas normal white blood cells fight infection and disease in the body, myeloid blasts do not mature into fully functional white blood cells, and they crowd out healthy white blood cells and red blood cells (which carry oxygen). This condition allows disease, infection, to enter the body. The leukemia can also spread to the central nervous system.

Neuroblastoma is a kind of cancer where a tumor forms -most frequently in a young child or baby. Most often, according to Simon Cotterill, a research associate with the University of Newcastle (UK), the tumor originates in the abdomen. The cancer begins in the nerve tissue of the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands' duties in the body is to produce hormones that affect the rate of heartbeats (commonly referred to as "adrenaline"), blood pressure, blood sugar and, according to Cotterill's Web site (www.cancerindex.org),help "control the way the body reacts to stress."

How does a young person know that he or she has a tumor, formed because of Neuroblastoma? There may be a "lump in the abdomen, neck or chest; bulging eyes; dark circles around the eyes; bone pain; swollen stomach and breathing problems; painless, bluish lumps under the skin; weakness or paralysis..."

Another type of cancer that only women can suffer from is cervical cancer. According to an article in the U.S.A. Today (Rubin, 2005), "an estimated 10,370 women" in American will be told by their doctors they have cervical cancer in 2005. Of those, 3,710 are expected to die from the disease. How does cancer attack a woman in her cervix? Rubin explains that human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16, 18, 6 and 11 cause 70% of cervical cancers.

Most HPV virus strains result from genital warts (90% of genital warts cases involve HPV). "Up to 70% of sexually active women will become infected with HPV, "but "nine times out of 10," the HPV "clears up on its own. When the HPV does not clear up on its own, and there is a lasting infection, cervical cancer results "virtually" all the time.

The Ewing's family of tumors, according to the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center (www.oncolink.com),most often occurs in young people in their teenage years. The tumors may grow in the bones, in the chest wall, and may move from one part of the body to another, which is called "staging.'

The Ewing tumors may cause pain, stiffness, or tenderness in the person's bones; and after the patient complains of any of these symptoms, a doctor orders an x-ray, or take a tissue sample (biopsy) from the bone to see if there are cancer cells. Most patients are then checked to see if the cancer has spread to other places in the body, or, if the cancer has been "localized" in just one place.