Leukemia is a very common type of cancer found these days. Men, women, adults, children, Africans, Americans, – all are at risk. According to an old statistics about 44,000 people will be diagnosed positive for leukemia in the year 2010. However after a period of six years, with the introduction of modern technologies and development of state of the art facilities available in different cancer centers all over the world, the situation has changed. Now people are hopeful of staging a coming back even after the dreaded disease has caught hold of them. The survival rate had increased over 50 % and that is an astonishing fact.

Survival rate of leukemia patients is related to the severity level of the disease at the time of detection. The earlier the detection, greater is the possibility of survival. So knowing the symptoms and starting immediate consultation on detecting the symptoms will be the best course of action.

Symptoms

Fever:  Fever and repeated infections: During leukemia the blood counts of white blood cells will be reduced resulting in poor immunity to diseases. This condition leads to recurrent fever and infections. This is because a leukemia patient does not have strong preventive system to protect him from diseases.

Fatigue:  Leukemia is caused as a result of fast production of abnormal blood cells. These increased cells take up a lot of space thereby reducing the possibility of growth of red blood cells. This results in the decreased number of red blood cells. Decreased number of red cells is the reason for the poor availability of oxygen and is the cause of fatigue.

Bleeding or bruising: Bleeding in connection with cancer is painless. The same is true about bruise also. Bruise related to leukemia is not tender like normal bruise and so it does not have any pain. Leukemia results in decrease in platelets. This reduced clotting and increases easy bleeding.

Petechiae: These are very tiny spots like rashes seen on the skin. Unlike rashes petechiae  do not cause an itchiness. The decrease in platelet count and ruptures of capillaries are the reason for the formation of petechiae.

Bone or joint pain: in the case of leukemia patient experiences pain in the bone and in the joints. People usually confuse this pain as the pain of bone cancer. Growth of tumor is causing pain in bone cancer. But in leukemia the pain is caused due to overcrowding of bone marrow with blood cells.