Living with leukaemia

Leukaemias are cancers of the blood or bone marrow. But how do they form, and can they be treated?

Types of leukaemia

Most leukaemias are either myeloid or lymphocytic/lymphoblastic, depending on which cells they affect, and can be either chronic or acute.

Age of onset

Most leukaemia occurs in the elderly, but there is a separate, smaller peak in childhood.

Cell type

At every step in the differentiation process, the range of fates available to a progenitor cell narrows. Leukaemias can occur at any stage in this process. See Fig. 1.

Figure 1

Treatment timeline

Important advances in the treatment of leukaemia.

5-year survivability in the United States

The likelihood of surviving with leukaemia for 5 years has been increasing steadily for more than 30 years as treatments have improved.