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LEUKAEMIA - MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE
Leukaemia is a form of cancer that originates in the bone marrow. At onset, huge groups of cancerous marrow cells quickly supplant normal bone marrow cells, thus reducing the numbers of vital blood platelets. Platelets are necessary for inducing blood clotting to stem the bleeding of wounds. A leukaemia victim will find that that he bruises easily and wounds may bleed unchecked. Leukaemia can also suppress the creation of white blood cells crucial for battling pathogens, making the patient susceptible to infections and at risk from infectious diseases. When the red blood cell count falls, anaemia may develop and in turn cause dyspnea.
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Symptoms
A doctor who suspects his patient has leukaemia should order blood tests and a bone marrow biopsy to be done. He will also enquire whether the patient suffers from chills, fever, weakness, cold symptoms, intense headaches, swollen gums, loss of appetite or a suspicious loss of weight.
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Misdiagnosis
There are some patients who might be informed that they have leukaemia because the tests give a 'false positive' result. This type of result means the patient does not really have leukaemia and thus may not require the corresponding treatments for leukaemia. This produces emotional and psychological distress in the patient who also risks not being treated properly for whatever is actually causing the illness.
If the patient does have leukaemia but diagnosis was delayed or a misdiagnosis was done, this may result in unnecessary suffering for the patient. A patient stands to benefit the most from the administration of various management and treatment options with an early diagnosis.
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Origin of the Name
Leukaemia is categorized under the hematological neoplasms group of diseases. Its name "leukaemia" is derived from the presence of many white blood cells in blood samples taken from leukaemia patients before treatment. These surplus white blood cells are dysfunctional or immature and may hamper the function of other blood cells.
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Types
A variation of leukaemia is the condition dubbed aleukemia. In this type of leukaemia, there are no surplus white blood cells present in the bloodstream because malignant white blood cells are contained and localised in the bone marrow. An aleukemic patient would have blood samples that show normal or low white blood cell count instead. Aleukemia can exist in any of the four kinds of leukaemia (but is quite common in hairy cell leukaemia).
The four known kinds of leukaemia can fall into two major categories: acute and chronic. Under acute leukaemia can be found acute lymphocytic leukaemia (also called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) and acute myelogenous leukaemia. Under chronic leukaemia are chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and chronic myelogenous leukaemia.
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Risk Factors
Though doctors are not sure what causes patients to develop leukemia, medical research has identified some possible risk factors: heredity or genetics; presence of viruses; exposure to some chemicals and artificial or natural ionizing radiation. What is definitely known though is that leukaemia is the end result of somatic DNA mutations. Without knowing what the direct causes of leukaemia are, it is difficult to find ways to prevent patients from developing the cancer.