Hairy cell leukemia

Hairy cell leukemia (HCL) is a rare cancer of the blood. It affects B cells, a type of white blood cell (lymphocyte). HCL is due to increase of a clonal malignant B cell that infiltrates the reticuloendothelial cells, mainly the bone marrow, resulting in bone marrow failure. Somewhere between 600 and 800 people are effected with hairy cell leukemia every year in the United States. Hairy cell leukemia affects more men than women, and it occurs most commonly in middle-aged or older adults.

Children and teenagers don't get hairy cell leukemia. This disease is observed more commonly in whites. Occasionally, hairy cell leukemia has occurred in members of the same family. However, this is uncommon and no hereditary pattern has been established. Other rare conditions may be linked with HCL, such as acquired issue VIII antibodies, paraproteinemia, and systemic mast cell disease. The symptoms and signs of hairy cell leukemia are nonspecific and resemble those of other illnesses.

The most common symptoms and presenting complaints are weakness and tiredness due to anemia. Some symptoms and signs are pain or fullness in the upper left side of the abdomen, as a effect of an enlarged spleen, on explained weight loss, a loss of a sense of well-being and an infection accompanied by fever and chills. Hairy cells accumulate in the bone marrow and prevent the marrow from producing enough normal blood cells. People with this disease may not need treatment in the early stages.

Several treatments are available, and successful manage of the disease is common. Chemotherapy is cancer treatments that utilize drugs to prevent the growth of cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Biological therapy (immunotherapy) attempts to make cancer cells more recognizable to your immune system. Surgery to remove your spleen (splenectomy) was the first treatment used in hairy cell leukemia, though it's used only rarely today.