If leukemia is the overproduction of leucocytes, why is it bad?
Leukemia is indeed an overproduction of white blood cells, but you are right that they are defective. Acute leukemia produces alot of immature WBCs which cannot fight infection and have the side effect of ‘clogging up’ the areas in the bone marrow which produce them. This means that the bone marrow cannot create any healthy WBCs and can also lead to a decrease in other blood constituents such as red blood cells and platelets. This leaves the patient with a poorly functioning immune system, anemia and poorly clotting blood. The large amount of WBCs can also get clogged in other organs causing problems there too. Chronic leukemia doesn’t cause alot of immature WBCs, but it does create alot of non-functioning ones which will affect the persons immune system.
