Most people think that Leukaemia is a form of cancer of the blood. This is not strictly correct. Leukaemia is really a cancer of the bone marrow. The bone marrow is found in the marrow cavities of the long bones, ribcage and pelvis and contains many different types of cells which actually produce all the various types of blood cells.

The bone marrow is the blood-making factory of the body producing hundreds of millions of red and white blood cells each and every day of our lives. If one of these bone marrow cells becomes cancerous it starts to grow and divide aggressively out of all control and pushes out all the normal blood making cells from the bone marrow.

Consequently normal blood production ceases and the bone marrow and blood begin to fill up with cancerous leukaemia cells which serve no useful function.

There are many different types of bone marrow cell which give rise to the various types of blood cells and it is the particular type of bone marrow cell which becomes malignant determines the type of leukaemia that develops.

Broadly speaking there are two main categories of leukaemia:

Acute which starts suddenly and progresses rapidly killing the patient in a matter of weeks if left untreated and Chronic which starts gradually and progresses slowly sometimes taking many months or even years to kill the patient.

Acute leukaemia can be divided into two main types:

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) which affects mainly children but only relatively few adults

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML)which affects mainly adults but relatively few children.

Chronic Leukaemia similarly exists as two main types