Dr. Rudolf Virchow, a German politician whose broad passions prompted fundamental advancements in pathology, cell biology, and anthropology, named leukemia after him in 1847. Leukemia is a fatal cancerous disease of the blood; its advent was not reported until February 22, 1970 (Mehranfar et al., 2017). By 1913, numerous forms of leukemia had been identified, albeit none of them were curable. On December 2, the same year, the hospital authorities classified a story on the death of a student who had suffered from an adverse blood ailment termed acute lymphatic leukemia. Additionally, this was the first mention of an effort to treat the sickness, which included the use of a blood transfusion from the patient’s twin brother. The condition is more prevalent in adults over the age of 55. Moreover, it is the most frequent cancer among children under 15 years.
Leukemia originates in the bone marrow’s growing blood cells. Every kind of blood cell begins as hematopoietic stem cells. The stem cells undergo many phases of growth before becoming their mature form. According to Mehranfaret al. (2017), blood stem cells differentiate into myeloid, which develop in (platelets, red blood cells, and specific white blood cells) or lymphoid cells (certain white blood cells). Further, blood cells grow and divide inside the bone marrow, forming red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Nevertheless, if a person has leukemia, one of the blood cell types starts to expand quickly and uncontrollably. These aberrant cells, dubbed leukemia cells, proceed to take over the bone marrow’s territory. They obstruct the development of typical cell types that are detrimental in various ways.
The disease is characterized by chills and fever, exhaustion and weakness, bone pain, and recurrent infections. Furthermore, it entails a patient exhibiting weight loss, bruising easily, excessive sweating, especially at night, and anemia, which may manifest as weariness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. However, the disease can be prevented by traditional alternatives such as using herbs and botanical medicine. For instance, green tea and turmeric are helpful since turmeric contains curcumin, an anti-inflammatory compound. Curcumin may help treat leukemia; it contains anti-tumor characteristics and may assist therapies in delaying disease development, minimizing treatment dosages and adverse effects (Mehranfa et al., 2017). The disease can be further treatable by employing applicable measures such as Chemotherapy, which is the primary leukemia treatment; the method uses medicine to kill leukemia cells using chemicals.
References
Ferrando, A. A., & LĂłpez-OtĂn, C. (2017). Clonal evolution in leukemia. Nature Medicine, 23(10), 1135–1145. Web.
Mehranfar, S., Zeinali, S., Hosseini, R., Mohammadian, M., Akbarzadeh, A., & Pour Feizi, A. H. (2017). History of Leukemia: Diagnosis and treatment from beginning to now. Galen Medical Journal, 6(1), 12–22. Web.