How Does Blood Cancer Actually Work?

There are hundreds of different types of cancer. A lot of them are focused on a single organ or system within your body, like breast, prostate or liver cancer. But there are some that don’t follow that pattern, which often leads to a lot of confusion about what they are, what effects they actually have, and how they’re treated. Today we’re going to focus on just one of them - blood cancer.

What is Blood Cancer?

Blood cancer is essentially any type of cancer that affects your blood. There are dozens of cancers that fall into this category, with each targeting a slightly different element of your blood cells in slightly different ways. 

To make things more complicated, there are different types of blood cancer. The main 3 are:

Leukaemia: Probably the most well-known of all the blood cancers, leukaemia affects the blood cells in your bone marrow. Your bone marrow is the spongy tissue that’s inside your bones, and it’s where all of your blood cells are made. If you have leukaemia, your white blood cells aren’t produced correctly - you might have too many, not enough, or they just don’t work properly. There are 9 different types of leukaemia, which you can learn about here.

Lymphoma: This form of blood cancer affects the immune system. Specifically, it affects lymphocytes (i.e. your white blood cells), and is also called the cancer of your lymphatic system. It causes something to go wrong when your lymphocytes are developing, which means they multiply out of control. There are only two subtypes of lymphoma - Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin, and around 14,000 people are diagnosed with it every year. In fact, it’s the most common type of blood cancer there is.

Myeloma: Let’s look at a different part of your blood now, the plasma. Your plasma cells make antibodies, but with myeloma they grow out of control and stop your body from making other blood cells.

Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS): This covers a group of different conditions, but it essentially means that your bone marrow doesn’t work properly and instead makes faulty blood cells.

Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN): The rarest type of blood cancer, Myeloproliferative Neoplasms mean that your body produces too many of a particular type of blood cell. There are three main sub-types, Polycythaemia Vera, Essential Thrombocythemia, and Myelofibrosis. There are only around 4,180 cases in the UK each year, and are all classified as blood cancers.

Each of these has different symptoms, treatments and outlooks for the future, which means there’s no one list of symptoms or treatments we can provide. But we can look at some of the most commonly occurring warning signs, and what the treatment options could be. 

Common Symptoms of Blood Cancer

The single most common symptom across the entire range of blood cancers is persistent fatigue. This isn’t just feeling a bit tired or run down. This is an extreme level of tiredness that doesn’t improve at all, no matter how much rest or sleep you get. As well as that, you may experience any combination of the following:

• Unexplained bruising or bleeding.

• Infections that don’t really go away, or keep coming back after treatment.

• Unexplained pain or aching in your bones or joints, to the point where it interferes with your sleep or activities during the day.

• Lumps or swelling that can turn up anywhere on the body.

• Unexplained pain, discomfort, or feeling bloated in your stomach area.

• Drenching night sweats.

• Unexplained fever or persistent high temperature.

• Paleness.

• Unexplained weight loss.

• Shortness of breath.

• An unexplained rash or itchy skin anywhere on your body that doesn’t improve with treatment.

Not everyone will have the same symptoms, and you might experience only one or two from the list. But if you’re concerned, you should always talk to your doctor.

How Is Blood Cancer Treated?

Once blood cancer is diagnosed, you can move on to treating it. Because there are so many different types, the exact treatment method and schedule will be decided by your care team. You may have one type of treatment, or a number of them. Common treatments include:

• Chemotherapy.

• Targeted therapies.

• Immunotherapy.

• Radiotherapy.

• Stem cell transplants.

If your blood cancer is slow growing, then your team might decide to delay treatment. Some people don’t even need treatment. Instead, they’re put on ‘active monitoring’, which essentially means ‘watch and wait’. You are observed and go in for tests regularly, so that your care team can plan around how it’s progressing.

Treatment for cancer is usually fairly effective. Blood cancers have around a 70% survival rate, depending on the type and your age. The treatments might have side effects, some of which we’ve covered before, but they’re manageable.

You can find out more about blood cancer here, and if you’re in need of some respite, recovery or just time to process a new diagnosis, the doors to Jill’s Place are always open.