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Doctor speaks on blood cancer awareness
According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, nearly 1.7 million people in the U.S. are living with, or are in remission from, blood cancer. Dr. Jane Chawla, a hematologist and medical oncologist at Texas Oncology Austin Central, joined FOX 7 Austin's Rebecca Thomas to discuss.
AUSTIN, Texas - According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, nearly 1.7 million people in the U.S. are living with, or are in remission from, blood cancer.
Every three minutes, someone gets a diagnosis.
Dr. Jane Chawla, a hematologist and medical oncologist at Texas Oncology Austin Central, joined FOX 7 Austin's Rebecca Thomas to discuss.
Rebecca Thomas: Dr. Chawla, there are more than 100 different types of blood cancers. What are some of the more common ones that you treat?
Dr. Jane Chawla: Good question. Well, you're right. There are a lot of different types of lymphoma, lymphomas and leukemias and other types of blood cancers out there. But the most common type we see is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with about 80,000 cases per year. Second is leukemias. We probably see about 60,000 leukemias in the United States each year and about 35,000 multiple myeloma cases.
Rebecca Thomas: Does each type of cancer have different symptoms or are there symptoms that are universal?
Dr. Jane Chawla: There are some similarities between all the different types of cancers as far as symptoms. Probably the more common ones we see are fevers, weight loss, sometimes night sweats. They're kind of nonspecific symptoms. We can see those too, and infections and other things. We always have to keep those in mind as well. Oftentimes, we will also see some abnormalities in the blood count. We can see either a high or a low white blood cell count. Sometimes people come in with symptoms of infection. We can also sometimes see either a high or low red blood cell count and people can feel fatigue and feel short of breath. Lastly, we can see either an elevated or a low platelet count, which can lead to bleeding and, in some cases, an increased risk of clotting.
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Rebecca Thomas: How do you typically diagnose someone with blood cancer? Are they coming in with symptoms or is this something that even routine blood work would pick up?
Dr. Jane Chawla: Sometimes early cases may be picked up on routine blood work, such as a blood count, where we see some of the derangements in the white cells, the red cells or the platelets. And early on, we may see a person's primary care physician may notice that and send those individuals to us for further workup. In other cases, sometimes people become aware of increased infection kind of symptoms or enlarged lymph nodes or symptoms like that. They then get brought to their PCP or primary care physicians.
Rebecca Thomas: Notice again, there are so many different types of blood cancer. Which ones are easier to treat? Which ones are more resistant?
Dr. Jane Chawla: Good question. There are multiple different types. Some of the leukemias and lymphomas are slower growing. The slower growing subtypes often don't even need treatment at all if they're not causing an individual any kind of major symptoms. The more aggressive ones, the ones that are growing quickly and are causing a lot of symptoms like the night sweats, fevers, weight loss. Those are the ones that almost always need to be treated up front.
Rebecca Thomas: What about risk factors or is there anything that someone can do to prevent getting blood cancer in the future?
Dr. Jane Chawla: Yeah, very good question. Well, there are always some things that can be done to lower our risk. Not smoking is always one of those. So, if smoking does increase the risk of leukemias and lymphomas as well as increases the risk of other types of cancers, and there are other risk factors as well, such as, you know, if you have a family member with a history of leukemia lymphoma, you may have a slightly increased risk of exposure to various chemicals in the environment that can increase our risk, as well as different types of viruses such as HIV and Epstein-Barr virus.
Rebecca Thomas: Okay. We are out of time, but Dr. Jane Chawla with Texas Oncology, Austin Central, thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise with us tonight.