Hello. I'm 35 year old female. I will try to describe you what happened and what is troubling me for the past two weeks. Three months ago, my close relative was diagnosed with acute leukemia and, you will not believe this, he died after two months fighting with this serious disease. We couldn’t believe something like this could happen. So, what really is bothering me, beside the death of my close relative, is question-is acute leukemia hereditary? My grandfather died from leukemia and I can't help not thinking about it. I would like to hear something more about symptoms of leukemia in children and adults are possible cure for this terrible disease. Thank you in advance.
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I think I can help you because in the past three or four years I’ve been reading a lot about leukemias. I did so because three years ago my wife died from leukemia.
First I will give you medical definition of disease.
Leukemias are a group of disorders which represent cancers of the blood and bone marrow system. Some leukemias are slow growing, relatively benign disorders requiring only observation, often for periods of years. Other diseases are dangerous, rapidly growing processes, which require emergency treatment.
Your relative probably had one of these rapidly growing leukemias like my wife.
Symptoms are mostly concerning the blood changes. Main symptoms are significant anemia (low red blood cells-causing fatigue or weakness), thrombocytopenia (lack of platelets potentially causing bleeding) or neutropenia (lack of the infection fighting white cells neutrophils). In this moment there is no proof of leukemia hereditarity!
As you know, there is no definitive cure for leukemia. The goal of any treatment is to transfer a patient from this rapidly growing to chronic type of leukemia.
People diagnosed with chronic leukemia can live a long and quality life.
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There are only a handfull of FDA approved treatments on the medicine shelf, when they manage to compile the patients DNA, treatment and outcomes, they may discover that certain Chemo/s work better than others depending on the patients DNA sequence and the ability of their cells ability to withstand treatment without translocating. Once a Translocation has occured it is like finding a needle in a haystack, to kill the stem-cell that is cancerous. So basically now knowing that my mother developed AML from the use of Adrimyacine (a topoisomere) used to open the DNA helix so that the radiation would be more effective during the treatment of her breast cancer, I would consider myself pre-disposed based on my genetics to AML and will seriously consider this should I ever need to undergo any kind of chemo therapy. Sorry for the long explanation, hope it helped.
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I strongly believe that this disease is hereditary. People from 4 Generations from my mums side have died from the disease, including my great granpa, my gran and my mum.
My concern now is for my two brothers, myself, my children and my nieces and nephews. It skipped alot people on my mums side but people from 4 generations still passed away through this.
The question that bugs me is who will get it and who will be lucky enough to escape the odds?
Sorry for being morbid.
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Then, later I spoke to the husband of a friend who died from ALL. The same thing happened to her. She was tired for no good reason, and although she saw a doctor for it, they failed to test her for ALL until it was too late. Her husband told me that this lady had a parent who died from the same disease. They may not have proof that it is hereditary, but I firmly believe it is.
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Those are the only 3 women in my family to have it however. My great grandmother lived to 93 with it. She had 8 children (7 girls and 1 boy) and of those only my grandmother had it. My grandmother (now 73 still alive) had 3 children (2 girls and 1 boy) and of those only my mother has it (now 40).
I have never been diagnosed with it. I am now 24, so I may be in the clear. My great grandma was diagnosed at 20, grandma at 22 and mother at 19.
I believe my mother is actually participating in a study to determine if there is a genetic link. She doesn't like to talk about it much however (and I respect her privacy to much to pry), so I don't have much information on it.
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