Hi everybody, today I'll tell you about leukemia. Well, some of you may not see that word before but that's ok. It is my job to show you what leukemia is so if all of you knew it already, what would I stand here for? Anyway, leukemia is a kind of cancer so in order to understand what leukemia is, we need some background information about cancer. Ok now, can anyone tell me what is cancer? (That right, thank you, anything else/ no sorry but I don't think so/ come on you guys, I just have 3 minutes, you are losing my time. Ok, it you don't tell me, I will tell you then.) .
Cancer is a common name of many diseases. It develops when cells in part of your body grow out of control and become irregular cells. There are more than 200 kinds of cells in your body therefore there are more than 200 kind of cancers. Too many huh? .
Right, so again, what is leukemia? It is cancer of the blood cells or we may call blood cancer. It first starts in bone marrow and develops when white blood cells turn into malignant cells and stop the growth of other cells like red blood cells, platelets and even the normal white blood cells. Leukemia can happen to both children and grow up people, but actually, it is the most common cancer in children. .
You may wonder why we have leukemia. Why do the white blood cells grow out of control like that? Well, they are my questions too and up to now, scientists don't have the answers yet but they will soon, I think. Anyway, we do know some causes of leukemia.
High doses of radiation .
Some drugs.
Viruses HTLV (human T cell leukemia viruses).
And the dangerous thing is leukemia cells have managed to subsist undetected in 5 years. So after a patient was treated very well and he is healthy again, he or she still have to see the doctor frequently in 5 years from there to make sure the leukemia cells don't return.
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Another question, how many types of leukemia? Well, leukemia has many different types and subtypes; however, there are four most popular kinds of leukemia.