What is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia?
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is a rare type of cancer, affecting approximately 200 adults per year in the UK. Leukaemia is a cancer of the white blood cells. Normally, white blood cells grow and divide in an orderly and controlled way but in leukaemia the process gets out of control and the cells divide too quickly, but do not mature. In acute lymphoblastic leukaemia there is an overproduction of immature lymphocytes, called lymphoblasts (sometimes referred to as blast cells). There are two different types of lymphocytes: B-lymphocytes and T-lymphocytes. These immature cells fill up the bone marrow and stop it from making blood cells properly. As the leukaemia cells do not mature, they cannot do the work of normal white blood cells, which leads to an increased risk of infection. Because the bone marrow is overcrowded with immature white cells it cannot make enough healthy red cells and platelets.ALL occurs more frequently in children (under 15 years of age) than adults. When it occurs
