The form of leukemia that struck Berlusconi is one of the many subtypes of blood cancers that exist: and each one requires different treatments. In addition to chemotherapy, there are targeted drugs with a molecular target. Here are the symptoms that can make you suspicious
Silvio Berlusconi hospitalized in intensive care, at the San Raffaele in Milan, due to pneumonia, a consequence of a form of leukemia.
1. How many types of blood cancers are there?
There are over 100 different types of blood cancers belonging to three large macro-groups:
– leukemia;
– lymphomas;
– myelomas.
For each of these there are dozens of different subtypes, which require specific treatments and which have a very varied prognosis.
Every year about 30,000 Italians fall ill with a haematological neoplasm.
In some cases, the patient does not even have to undergo treatments, but only checks and lives with the tumor even decades.
In others, unfortunately, the disease is so aggressive that it can cause death within few days.
Even leukemias can manifest themselves in an acute form (more severe and with an aggressive course), but most of them actually tend to have a very “slow” or chronic
– explains Paolo Corradini, president of the Italian Society of Hematology (SIE) and director of Hematology at the IRCCS Foundation National Cancer Institute (Int) in Milan -. The acute forms can have an onset that configures a real clinical emergency, so much so that about 20% of new patients go to the emergency room before receiving the definitive diagnosis of blood cancer.
2. What are the therapies against blood cancer?
Impossible to give a one-size-fits-all answer, the decision is made first based on tumor subtype in question and then considering various factors, starting from the age and general health conditions of the patient replies Fabrizio Pane, Professor of Hematology and director of the Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Operative Unit at the Federico II University Hospital of Naples.
It is certain that, since tumors are typical pathologies of ageing, two thirds of patients are over 65 years of age.
3. What is the role of chemotherapy?
Also in this case we cannot generalize and it must be kept in mind that the term chemotherapy is often used to mean, in a broad sense, the use of drugs. The old (and still precious in many cases) chemotherapy consists in the administration of cytotoxic medicines (i.e. able to damage cells) o antiblastic (which inhibit the growth of tumours) which are intended to destroy cancer cells in the body.
Depending on the drugs and dosages it can be more or less heavy to bear, especially for an elderly person, usually already being treated for other diseases typical of advanced age – explains Pane -. In some cases of leukemia, if possible, a mild chemo is prescribed. For many types of leukemias exist for new drugs, such as the so-called targeted ones, with a molecular target (also called target therapies), or the biological ones which instead manage to save healthy cells and tissues from the toxic effect. I am effective and have fewer side effects. Easier to tolerate for those advanced in years.
4. What are the symptoms that should make you suspicious?
The initial signals are always rather vague and not very specific and could be a sign of many other pathologies, often similar to those of a bad flu) – concludes Corradini -. It is important to talk to a doctor if you have: fever or fever (particularly in the afternoon or at night) and a sense of weakness which last without apparent cause for more than two weeks; pain in the bones or joints that does not go away; loss of appetite and sudden and unexplained weight loss; bleeding under the skin (small red spots called petechiae) and/or spontaneous bleeding from the mucous membranes (epistaxis and; bleeding and ulceration of the oral cavity); painless swelling of a superficial lymph node in the neck, armpit or groin. There may also be excessive sweating, especially at night, which forces you to change clothes and persistent itching all over the body.
April 6, 2023 (change April 6, 2023 | 2:54 pm)
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