Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about leukemia.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com

or in the hematology section of the second edition of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Leukemia is cancer of a particular line of stem cells in the bone marrow,

causing unregulated production of a specific type of blood cell.

Let's talk about the types.

The types of leukemia can be classified depending on how rapidly they progress,

where chronic is slow and acute is fast,

and the cell line that is affected,

generally myeloid or lymphoid cell lines. And this makes the four

types of leukemia. Acute myeloid leukemia where there's rapidly progressing cancer of the myeloid cell

line. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia where there's rapidly progressing cancer of the lymphoid cell line,

chronic myeloid leukemia where there's slowly progressing cancer of the myeloid cell line,

and chronic lymphocytic leukemia where there's slowly progressing cancer of the lymphoid cell line.

Other rarer types of leukemia such as acute pro myelocytic leukemia are less likely to appear in your exams.

Most types of leukemia occur in patients over 60 to 70 years of age. The exception is acute

lymphoblastic leukemia, which most commonly affects children under five years of age.

A tom tip for you, the key differentiating features to remember for exams are acute lymphoblastic leukemia,

is the most common leukemia in children and is associated with Down syndrome. Chronic lymphocytic

leukemia is associated with warm hemolytic anemia, Richter's transformation and smudge cells.

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