World Leukemia Day: What is it and how is it classified?

The hematologist Christian Omar Ramos-Peñafiel commented, in the seminar “Educate to live” of the Mexican Association for the fight against cancer, that “Blood is like a train wagon that arrives at different stations in the human body.”

The leukemia it is a blood cancer which takes place in the bone marrow, this is the primary wagon and the ganglia are the secondary ones. By the time the blood becomes sick, the primary season presents leukemia, while the secondary causes lymphoma.

In this way, the specialist explained in a didactic way how cancers are produced in the blood.

How is leukemia classified?

There are several ways to classify leukemia, first it is known as hematologic or fluids.

“There are cancers that are called solid, which means that they are affecting a specific structure, and other cancers that are liquid. The latter indirectly implicate all the sites where the blood crosses. Hence, what we call leukemias are liquid cancers”he commented to the Indigo Report magazine.

In patients with this disease, the production of white blood cells (leukocytes) increases significantly in the body. This is because they are in charge of fighting infections in the body.

In addition, leukemia is classified as acute or chronic leukemias, which does not mean that one becomes the other. “They are different diseases but their sudden or slow onset behavior”he added.

Another classification of leukemia is given by the cell whose interior is altered, since it must be remembered that this does not form tumors.

For example, when cancer occurs in those that will form lymphocytes, it is called lymphocytic or lymphoblastic; but if it occurs in cells that will become red blood cells, some types of white blood cells, or platelets, it is called myelogenous or myeloid.