Multiple Causation Theory Of Leukemia Essay - 1,944 words

Leukemia is a malignant disease of the bone marrow and blood. It is characterized by the uncontrolled growth of blood cells. The term leukemia has a Latin derivation. Luke means white and heme is blood. Therefore the word leukemia literally means white blood. The common types of leukemia are divided into four major categories: myelogenous and lymphocytic, which can then be divided into acute or chronic.


Thus, the four major types of leukemia are acute or chronic myelogenous leukemia and acute or chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Acute leukemia involves the most primitive types of leukemia cells. It is a rapidly progressing disease that results in the accumulation of immature cells in the marrow and blood that do not function. In most cases, the marrow can no longer produce enough normal red and white blood cells and platelets. This class of cancer leads to an overproduction of blood cells that have similar characteristics, which mean that they are clones. Cloned cells share two common features that lead to the symptoms of leukemia.


The first is that the cells divide without control and fail to respond to the signals that tell them to stop. The second is that these cells have a longer life than normal cells and gradually accumulate in the bone marrow (web). This uncontrolled production of long lived cells leads to the replacement of the normal cells in the bone marrow with leukemic clones. Since the space is limited in the marrow, the normal cells are crowded out by these clones (web). All the normal blood-forming elements are eventually affected if the leukemia goes unchecked.


This means that the white cells, platelets and red blood cells are all eventually depleted. The lower number of normal white blood cells makes leukemic patients more vulnerable to infection. The depletion of normal platelets interferes with the patients clotting ability and makes the patient more susceptible to abnormal bleeding and bruising. Anemia is caused by the decreased production of normal red blood cells. Leukemic cells are actually abnormal white blood cells.


As these cells clone themselves they increase the concentration of white blood cells in the blood stream. Chronic leukemia seems to progresses more slowly and permits greater numbers of more mature functional cells to be made. Now that I have presented the background for the disease itself, its time to look at it from the Multiple Causation Theory. This theory has five basic categories: biological / genetic , demographic, environmental, psychological, and social interaction.


Before I discuss these categories, I must first present the information that the theory is concerned with. And that is a) the incidence of new cases and b) the prevalence or total number of illness within a given population. It was estimated that there would be 30, 200 new cases of leukemia in the United States in 1999. There would be equal proportions are acute leukemia and chronic types (web). Most cases occur in older adults; more than half of all cases occur after the age of 60.


Leukemia is expected to strike ten times as many adults as children in 1999. About 27, 900 cases compared with 2, 300 in children, ages 0 - 14. The most common types of leukemia in adults are acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), with an estimated 10, 100 new cases annually; and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), with some 7, 800 new cases in 1999. The most common form of the leukemia in children is acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). It accounts for about 3, 100 new cases of leukemia in 1999, with 1, 500 of these new cases occurring among children. Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) strikes about 4, 500 persons each year.


Other forms of leukemia strike about 4, 700 persons each year. The first category that I will talk about is biological / genetic . This category refers to an inherent bio-physiological state that predisposes certain persons to particular illnesses as a result of physical inheritance. But as stated in the article, there is no evidence that any form of cancer can be inherited. Even in the very rare cases of cancer being present at birth, the disease has developed as a result of cell damage, which happened in the uterus. In the vast majority of cases of leukemia and other forms of cancer there is no evidence that relatives of the patient are at greater risk than any one else (web).


There are some inherited conditions in which the risk of developing cancer is increased. Examples include Downs syndrome and a condition called ataxia telangiectasis. This condition affects the ability of the cell to repair damage to the genes and because of this many different cancers are seen more frequently than in the general population. In other cases, including Downs syndrome the reasons are not well understood (web). The second category is the demographic of the disease. This refers to social status characteristics such as age, sex, social class, race, income, and education.


The characteristics of social class, income, and education dont really come into play with the different leukemia types because everyone is susceptible. Age plays a big part in which type of leukemia a person will develop. There are a few types of cancer, which occur more commonly in childhood than in adults. One of these is acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is more common between the ages of 2 and 5 years than at any other age. This is known as the childhood peak of leukemia.


Some diseases, such as myeloma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, are almost never seen in young people (web). The leukemia death rate for children in the U. S. has declined 57 percent over the last three decades.


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Essay Tags: red blood cells, types of leukemia, downs syndrome, white blood cells, bone marrow

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