Leukemia/lymphoma

Leukemia is a cancer of the organs that make blood: the bone marrow and the lymph system. The overabundance of white blood cells crowd the bone marrow and prevent it from producing enough red, white blood cells and clotting platelets. The body then loses its ability to fight infection, as well as increased possibility of anemia, easy bruising and bone pain. Leukemia may be acute which involves immature cells and half chronic with cells more advanced in development and tends to progress slowly. Leukemia represents approximately 5% of cancers and is generally associated with an older population. However, until recently childhood leukemia was the most common cancer of children. 

Lymphoma is a general term for cancers that develop in the lymphatic system affecting the body's immune system. There are two basic kinds of lymphoma, Hodgkin's which is a  unique kind of lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin's. The distinction between leukemia and lymphomas is somewhat arbitrary. If bone marrow involvement and circulating cells predominate or if they constitute the first recognized manifestation of the disease, the process is termed leukemia. Lymphomas originate in lymphoid tissues and rarely go into the blood stream.

Categories of Cancer, Carcinomas

As stated in previous post, cancer is not a monolithic disease but rather several hundred (albeit with often common pathways.) For our purposes they can be generally broken down into three major categories and further into hundreds of subtypes. The first two categories, carcinomas and sarcomas are solid tumors and leukemias and lymphomas are dispersed cells that may form a solid tumor.  The most common, carcinomas (from the Greek word crab due to often clawlike extensions) account for approximately 80-90 percent of all cases. Most carcinomas affect organs that secrete something such as the breast, the lungs (mucus) or pancreas. Most originate in the epithelium or sheets of cells that cover the surface area of affected tissue. The application of cancer rehabilitation to several specific cancers will be discussed in future entries.