Imagine sitting in the doctors office and the doctor saying, “you have leukemia.” Thousands of people across the world are diagnosed with leukemia every day. It is one of the million types of cancers. Leukemia is a cancer in the blood, it begins in the bone marrow, which is the tissue inside most bones. The bone marrow states to make abnormal white blood cells which are known as leukemia cells. The cells do not work like the normal white blood cells. The leukemia cells grow faster than normal cells. The eventually crowd out the normal blood cells. The word Leukemia comes from the Greek leukos which means white and aima which means blood.(“What”). The term leukemia means white blood. White blood cells known as leukocytes are used by the body to fight infection and other foreign substances. (“Leukemia”). The bone marrow is where stem cells grow. These stem cells become white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. In majority cases of leukemia there are too many abnormal white blood cells, and the cells crowd out the blood …show more content…
It was in 1827 that French physician, Dr. Velpeau performed a autopsy on a man that had all of the symptoms like, fever, pain, weakness, and also had pus-filled blood. Two other French physicians found similar cases with the pus-filled blood in about 1839. Doctors later noticed that the pus-filled blood was actually white blood cells piling up around 1845. (“History”). The actual term “leukemia” was coined by Rudolf Virchow in 1856. Virchow was the first to describe the abnormal excess of white blood cells in patients with the clinical syndrome described by Dr. Velpeau. (“Leukemia-History”). By 1913, four different types of leukemia had been discovered. During the 1970s, doctors discovered ways to remove leukemia from the body. By the 1980s and the 1990s the cure rates were about 70%. (“History of