Some people are walking around with leukaemia – but don’t know it

TELLING someone they have leukaemia isn’t easy. People generally associate the condition with young people who get very ill, very quickly.

But many older people are walking around with a form of leukaemia entirely unaware – because it may not cause any symptoms. In fact, it may not even require any treatment. I’m talking about chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), the most common form of the disease, with a lifetime risk of about one in 155 for men and one in 260 for women.

It’s a cancer of the cells in the bone marrow, which creates our blood.

CLL affects the white blood cells which help fight off infections. One form of these white blood cells, called B-lymphocyte, becomes abnormal.

In acute types of leukaemia, these cells multiply rapidly but with CLL they usually build up slowly, taking months or years.

Typically those affected – usually over-60s – only find out due to a blood test for other reasons.

But eventually it can cause certain symptoms. A build-up of these abnormal B-lymphocytes can cause the bone marrow to malfunction, affecting the number of red blood cells in the body – otherwise known as anaemia.

There can be blood-clotting problems, too and the abnormal lymphocytes aren’t very good at fighting infections.

If it advances, the options are chemotherapy and a new treatment called monoclonal antibodies.

One in six cases of CLL can transform into a more serious form of leukaemia which progresses more rapidly.

It needs to be monitored, then – but the general outlook is a lot better than the word “leukaemia” would suggest.