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Monday, February 15, 2016

Symptoms and Signs of Leukemia

A sign can be defined as something that can be recognized and observed by a healthcare professional or a doctor. A symptom on the other hand is something that can be recognized by the person who is experiencing it. These symptoms and signs of leukemia can also be caused by various other chronic health conditions. Thus it is extremely important to always have an unusual check for symptoms from a good doctor. Acute leukemia has symptoms and signs that may be similar to the flu and can come on suddenly within a few weeks or days. On the other hand chronic leukemia has symptoms that can gradually develop and people will then complain that they do not feel very well. This disease is discovered when a routine blood test is done.

Rare symptoms and signs
The rare symptoms and signs of leukemia are as follows.
•    Choroma
This is a tumor like collection that consists of leukemia cells and it is present under the skin and or other parts of the body.
•    Skin changes
Leukemia cutis can occur when the cells of leukemia cell enter the skin. The patches and sores can be of any particular size and are usually tan or pink in color.
Leukocytoclastic vasculitis can resemble a very allergic reaction on the skin of the person suffering. The sores can usually appear on the hands and also feet.
The sweet's syndrome includes painful sores and fever that can appear anywhere on the patient's body.

Blood count
A complete blood count must be done in order to measure the quality and number of the white blood cells, platelets and red blood cells. The leukemia is mostly suspected when the cell counts of the blood are abnormal and the blood cells are not looking very normal. The abnormal blood cell counts may be due to various other conditions and can be extremely abnormal. These abnormal blood counts may be due to various other conditions and leukemia. The blasts may not exactly occur normally in the blood so the leukemia is suspected if the blasts are present. It is one of the important things to remember.

Acute leukemia
The white blood cells will be low, high or normal. The blast cells can also be present in the blood of people who have acute leukemia.

Chronic leukemia

In a chronic condition the white blood cell count is extremely high. The platelet count can also be low and anemia.