What Causes Leukemia Cancer

What causes leukemia cells to start? Doctors as well as experts believe some things are known to increase your risk for diagnosis of leukemic cells. There are various causes of leukemic cells which include human viruses, exposure to cigarette smoking, chemo and radiation therapies and more.

1. Viruses

There are many human viruses that cause cancer. HTLV-1 is one. It is what causes leukemic cells particularly the acute T-cell type. This type is common in many parts of Caribbean and Asia.

Exposure to animal viruses is also strongly linked to a higher risk. In fact, a higher incidence of acute T-cell type is found among butchers, veterinary practitioners and workers in slaughterhouse.

2. Smoking

The 3 deadly chemicals in tobacco smoke such as . . .

• benzene,
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs, and
• polonium-210

Your lungs take in these cancer-causing substances when you are exposed to tobacco smoke. These chemicals travel far and wide in your bloodstream.

Exposure to these cancer-causing agents decreases the amount of your white blood cells.

And here's a scary fact: Secondhand smoke has 15 times more of these dangerous chemicals. Children who live with adults who smoke are in danger of pediatric leukemic cancer.

3. Radiation

Frequent and high doses of radiation are causes of leukemia, especially the chronic myeloid or myelogenous leukemia (CML).

A secondary cancer is one of the side effects of exposure to radiation.

In fact, it is common among people who undergo radiation therapy to treat a solid tumor to develop a secondary cancer like chronic myeloid leukemia after their therapy.

Prevention of a secondary cancer is the reason why a patient who undergoes radiation therapy as treatment is routinely tested for red blood count.

4. Chemotherapy

Substances used in chemotherapy such as. . .

• procarbazine,
• chlorambucil,
• etoposide,
• mechlorethamine,
• teniposide, and
• cyclophosphamide

. . . greatly increase a cancer patient’s chance to develop leukemia as one of its side effects.

What's worse is the risk goes up even higher when chemotherapy and radiation therapy are combined. All it takes is 2 years for leukemia to surface as one of the harmful effects of these types of treatment.

5. Other medical therapies

What causes leukemia?

The following show a strong link to causes of leukemic cells:

• Chloramphenicol,
• Phenylbutazone,
• Growth hormones, and
• Organ transplant.

Another one of the interesting facts: There are people who are exposed to these risk factors but don't develop leukemic cells and there are those who are diagnosed with the disease that don't have any known risk factors.

What does this tell us? A healthy immune system makes all the difference and what causes leukemia becomes less challenging.

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