Essentially, leukemia begins in the bone marrow where blood cells are made. Because of that, this cancer can spread quickly throughout the body, eventually affecting other organs like lymph nodes, the spinal cord, the brain or spleen. When leukemia is diagnosed as acute, that means the disease is spreading rapidly.
To learn more about the different types of treatments used to treat acute leukemia, read on.
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy is used for two purposes. The first is to actively treat and kill leukemia cancer cells in the spinal fluid and the brain. The second way in which radiation therapy is used is as a prevention method - essentially to prevent the cancer from returning to different parts of the body after chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy
The main treatments for leukemia are chemotherapies. Phases of chemotherapy include induction - where the treatment is directed at killing most of the leukemia cells; consolidation - the stage when a different type of chemotherapy is given to kill off any remaining leukemia cells; and maintenance -the phase where low doses are administered to acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients to prevent recurrence.
Remission Induction
Patients who are diagnosed with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia) will typically undergo remission induction treatments which involve cytrabine and an anthracycline. Because remission induction is so intensive, it's often undergone on an in-patient basis.
Typically, a course of remission induction will only last between 5 and 7 days. However, because most of the body's healthy bone marrow cells have been destroyed over the course of the treatment, the patient must endure a lengthy hospital stay following treatment.
For acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the treatment involves a combination of anthracycline and vincristine and prednisone. This combination reduces the amount of bone marrow damage, and patients can generally expect shorter hospital stays.
Consolidation Therapy
After the initial remission induction, the patient will undergo what is called consolidation therapy. This is designed to destroy any remaining cancer cells and therefore prevent a recurrence.
Maintenance Chemotherapy
Maintenance therapy is only used on patients with ALL. The therapy is a combination of oral methotrexate and mercaptopurine along with any other necessary drugs.
Central Nervous System Treatment
Because ALL can come back in the spinal fluid or brain, some patients are treated with methotrexate, which is administered through a spinal tap or, in some cases, radiation therapy to the brain.
Transplantation of Stem Cells
Stem cell transplantation is a serious procedure, but one that is often used in younger patients with a poor prognosis. Adult patients, under the age of 50, typically undergo stem cell transplantation treatments for leukemia if their leukemia relapses.
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