The treatment of leukemia depends on the patient's age and health, the type of leukemia he or she has and whether or not it has spread to other parts of the body.
5 common treatments of leukemia include:
5 common treatments of leukemia include:
- Chemotherapy: This uses drugs to target cancerous cells by using chemicals to kill them, and could be taken through mouth as pills, injected in cerebrospinal fluid or through IV. Most patients use chemotherapy to cure leukemia, but it sometimes does not work, and may affect other healthy cells in the body including blood cells, lining of the digestive tract and hair root cells.
- Biological therapy: This is a type of drug that enhances the patient's immune system to fight off leukemia. Some examples are interferon which is used to cure chronic myeloid leukemia through injection to slow down the process of cancerous cell division, and monoclonal antibody, which contains toxins to kill leukemia cells and improve the immune system to destroy cancerous cells.
- Targeted therapy: This type of treatment is usually used in chronic myeloid leukemia or acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and targets cancerous cells to stop the dividing; for example, this therapy may work against abnormal proteins promoting the chaotic cell division. Some side effects include nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and rash.
- Radiation therapy: This type of therapy uses X-ray and high energy light beam to target the leukemia cells and damage them. The length of the treatment can vary; when the doctors are treating for a specific part of the patient's body where the cells have collected, it may take 5 days per week for several weeks, where as radiation directed to the whole body treats 1 to 2 times per day for few days before the stem cell transplant. Some side effects include nausea, vomiting and skin irritation.
- Stem cell transplant: First, the patient is treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy to kill all the existing leukemia and healthy cells in the bone marrow; then, the patient can get a peripheral stem cell transplant, bone marrow transplant or umbilical cord blood transplant. The stem cells may come from the patient's own body or other donors. Biggest side effect is Graft Verses Host Disease (GVHD), where the white blood cells from newly transplanted stem cells react against already existing blood cells.
Hover over the images to see how the stem cell transplant treatment works!
Created by: Minzee Kim