Treatments for Leukemia
Your treatment will depend on the type of leukemia you have, how far it has spread, and how healthy you are. Treatment options include:
- Chemotherapy [7] uses drugs to kill cancer cells in your blood and bone marrow. You can get the medicine either as a shot into a vein or muscle, as a pill, or Into the fluid around your spinal cord
- Radiation uses high-energy X-rays to kill leukemia cells or keep them from growing. You can either get it in only one part of your body where there are a lot of cancer cells or all over.
- Biologic therapy, also called immunotherapy, helps your immune system find and attack cancer cells. Drugs like interleukins and interferon can help boost your body’s natural defenses against leukemia.
- Targeted therapy uses drugs to block specific genes or proteins that cancer cells need to grow. This treatment can stop the signals that leukemia cells use to grow and divide, cut off their blood supply, or kill them directly.
- A stem cell transplant replaces the leukemia cells in your bone marrow with new ones that make blood. The new stem cells can be gotten either from your own body or a donor. First, you’ll have high doses of chemotherapy to destroy the cancer cells in your bone marrow. Then, you’ll get the new stem cells through an infusion into one of your veins. They will grow into new, healthy blood cells.
- Removal of your spleen may be done if it’s filled with cancer cells and is pressing on nearby organs. This procedure is called a splenectomy.