#leukaemia

While leukemia itself isn’t rare, some of its subtypes are - including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Today would have been Zuza Beine’s 15th birthday - a content creator many of us knew well. She suffered from AML, and it was the disease that ultimately, unfortunately, took her life.

Rarity: heavily tied to aging - less than 1 in 100,000 in people under 40

AML is an aggressive blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow and rapidly produces immature, malfunctioning white blood cells.

It originates from myeloid stem cells. Instead of developing into healthy infection-fighting or oxygen-carrying cells, they become cancerous "blasts". These blast cells accumulate quickly in the blood and marrow, leading to marrow failure.

It is the most common acute (fast-moving) leukemia in adults, though it can occur in children (like Zuza, who first developed it when she was three). The risk rises with age and is commonly diagnosed in individuals over 65.

Symptoms:

- Anemia (low red blood cells): extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and pale skin

- Neutropenia (low functional white blood cells): frequent or recurring infections and unexplained fevers

- Thrombocytopenia (low platelets): easy bruising, frequent nosebleeds, and tiny red dots on the skin (petechiae)

Diagnosis:

- Blood tests, like complete blood count (CBC) and peripheral blood smear

- Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy

- Cytogenic and molecular testing: dictate the specific subtype of AML

Treatment:

Treatment is typically split into stages.

1. Induction therapy: intensive chemotherapy designed to kill the leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow and put the cancer into remission

2. Consolidation therapy: additional chemotherapy or targeted therapies to destroy any remaining cancer cells and prevent relapse

3. Stem cell transplant: often recommended for high-risk patients to replace diseased bone marrow with healthy stem cells

Cancer Daily Life is a bittersweet collection of illustrations that readers highly involved in the C world can relate to, including friends and family of people with cancer.’ From back cover. This short, colourful picture book finds the odd things, the weird things, and even the ironic things can bring a guarded smile, during cancer treatment. It’s a little something you could give a friend who…

Back to a waiting room. Not a metaphorical one, a very real waiting room with its vinyl-covered, wipe-clean seats that you slowly stick to on a warm day.

Here Charon doesn’t man the ferry across the Styx, but the tea trolley. Mournfully it moves its way between pockets of patients, its pilot reminding them “It’s all free,” and pushing half full paper cups of lukewarm milky tea into hands. The trolley is unplugged when in use and so the contents of the urn grows ever cooler. The custard creams in wrappers the same yellow as the toxic warnings on so many medications here have to be pushed harder still. Here, Charon conveys nobody anywhere. The ritual of passage reduced to the ritual of the trolley round, its thin comfort delivered with a gentle but slightly desperate insistence that the incurable participate.

So I sat, waiting, declined the tea with a slight acknowledgment from Charon that I know the ritual but today I did not wish to participate, when somewhere else on the same floor, muffled by heavy hospital doors, a bell was rung.

Read the full essay at:

The Scientific Research Notes of S. Sunkavally, Printed Part, Page. 242.

My family really needs some support right now, and I don’t usually post things like this, but this one hits close to home.

My aunt’s partner, Al, was recently diagnosed with leukaemia. Because the hospital is five hours away from where they live, my aunt needs to find a place to stay nearby while he’s there. That also means taking time off work and facing a lot of unexpected expenses on top of everything else.

If you can help in any way (by donating, sharing, or just sending good thoughts) it would mean the world to us. I’d love for her to have one less thing to worry about so she can focus on being there for him.

Nuclear Leukaemia

The most common genetic fault found associated with the blood cancer acute myeloid leukaemia is a nucleophosmin gene NPM1 mutation. Normal NPM1 activity maintains structures of the cell nucleus called nucleoli, but in NPM1-mutated AML nucleoli are distorted and malfunction, faults which are potential therapeutic targets

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Martin Grundy and colleagues

Translational Medical Sciences, Biodiscovery Institute, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Journal of Cell Science, May 2025

I don't usually post stuff like this but my little cousin has leukaemia. He's 12 years old. None of his treatments are working. He was due to have a bone marrow transplant but because his blood cell count is too high it can't go ahead.

He needs to be transferred to Great Ormand street hospital in London from Birmingham for CAR T-Cell therapy.

So far we've only raised £145/£500.

If any of you can donate or even share it would greatly be appreciated.

https://gofund.me/a92ef5ee