Leukemia and blood cancer: symptoms, what they are and how to recognize them

Diagnoses of blood cancer are on the rise: after his hospitalization on Wednesday, it became known that Berlusconi has leukemia. The number of blood cancer diagnoses is set to increase due to the general aging of the population – he explains Fabrizio Bread, Professor of Hematology and director of the Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Operative Unit at the Federico II University Hospital of Naples -. Fortunately, however, life expectancies are higher today and the 35-40% of patients can aspire to recovery. In addition, rapid advances in medicine have made many of what were once considered life-threatening diseases chronic.

Exist dozens of different subtypes of hematological malignancies belonging to three large macro-groups: leukemias, lymphomas and myelomas, which can occur in an acute (more severe and aggressive) or chronic form. In general, these forms of cancer affect the bone marrow which produces the main blood cells, i.e. white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets – explains Pane -. two are, as far as treatments are concerned, the points that emerge from the most recent data: first, we are moving towards the progressive abandonment of chemotherapy, replaced by “molecularly targeted” therapies less toxic and more comfortable (often in tablets); second, i get to know each other better and better several subtypes of tumors and, gradually, it is possible to develop effective treatments even for those more aggressive forms, which tend to recur or are refractory to current treatments.