Is Lymphoma Leukemia?
There is a lot of confusion between lymphoma and leukemia, and many people think that they are the same disease. However, even though they are both commonly known as blood cancers, they are different diseases altogether and have different causes. Apart from that, they also affect different parts of the body. Due to the leaps and bounds that medical technology has grown with in the past few decades, the survival rates for both lymphoma and leukemia have improved phenomenally over the years.
Leukemia is a cancer that starts developing in the bone marrow and gradually spreads to other parts of the body. Leukemia is of two major types: myelogenous and lymphocytic. These are further subdivided into acute and chronic forms. Thus, a patient of leukemia can be suffering from either acute or chronic myelogenous leukemia or acute or chronic lymphocytic leukemia .
Acute leukemia is a rapidly progressing ailment that affects cells that are not yet fully developed or are unformed. Once affected, the cells cannot function or grow properly. In the case of chronic leukemia, which spreads at a slower pace than the former, there is a rapid growth in the number of developed cells. These cells function normally in most cases. Nowadays, due to the ability to study and identify specific features of each disease, these four forms of leukemia have been further sub-classified. This classification helps in monitoring and treating the disease better.
Lymphoma is a cancer that starts in the lymphatic system and grows from there. This is the most common type of blood cancer and affects almost 56% of blood cancer patients. As opposed to leukemia, there are two main types of lymphoma- Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The more severe form of the disease- Hodgkin's lymphoma- is named after Thomas Hodgkin, the English physician who discovered the disease in 1832.
Lymphoma is caused when lymphocytes, which are white blood cells present in the lymph nodes and other parts of the body, start multiplying as a result of malignant changes. This causes them to grow in large numbers, while pushing out healthy cells. Such a condition leads to the formation of tumors in the lymph nodes and other parts of the body like the spleen and thymus etcetra.
While lymphoma mostly originates in the lymph nodes or in the lymphatic tissues present in the stomach or the intestines, it might at times involve the blood and the bone marrow. It further spreads to other parts of the body. In some cases, even leukemia might spread from the bone marrow to the blood and the lymph nodes, but this is different from lymphoma. Lymphoma is the fifth most common cancer among females and the sixth most prevalent cancer in males in the United States.
Even though there are similarities between both lymphoma and leukemia, they are both very different diseases and need to be treated differently. You should talk to your doctor in detail in order to understand the particular kind of cancer that you have and the best treatment for it.