Blood cancers are serious and life-threatening, but treatments are increasingly saving lives. Prevention, as in most things related to health, is key. But when it comes to blood cancers, not enough is known about what triggers these diseases. Here’s what we do know about blood cancers and their causes.

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Most blood cancers start in the bone marrow. There, stem cells develop the three types of blood cells circulating in our bodies: red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Blood cancers are most often the result of the normal cell production process getting interrupted by the sudden and uncontrolled production of abnormal blood cells. Those cancerous cells keep blood from doing what it’s meant to do.

There different types of blood cancer

There are three main types of blood cancers: leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. These cancers make up nearly 10% of all cancer diagnoses and affect both children and adults. In fact, “more than 1.2 million people in the U.S. are either living with or in remission today from a blood cancer,” according to the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Lymphoma

Lymphoma makes up about 47% of all blood cancer diagnoses. Most lymphoma diagnoses will be of the non-Hodgkin lymphoma type, which develop from abnormal white blood cells.

All types of lymphoma affect the body’s lymphatic system, which produces immune cells, called lymphocytes, and helps the body get rid of excess fluids. Abnormal lymphocytes make up the lymphoma, which collect and multiply in lymph nodes and eventually impair the immune system.

Leukemia

Leukemia is another major type of blood cancer and is diagnosed at a slightly lower rate than lymphoma. Leukemia is caused by bone marrow that is producing abnormal white blood cells too rapidly. This prevents healthy white blood cells from being able to properly fight infections, and keeps bone marrow from producing red cells and platelets, which the body needs for oxygen delivery and other necessary functions.

There are a few kinds of leukemia, which doctors group into acute and chronic types. Children make up a majority of leukemia patients with acute leukemia, which is also its more aggressive form. Chronic leukemia tends ot develop more slowly. Both of those categories are broken into myeloid and lymphocytic types.

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