Blood Cancer in Women When it comes to cancers in women, cancer of the ovaries, the breast or other areas that are specific to women are typically the primary focus. However, this report shall focus on a less prominent but still dangerous forms of cancer and that would be the blood-borne cancers. When it comes to such cancers, the three commonly known types are leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. While these cancers strike women and men alike, the focus will be on women and what is rendered and manifested when it comes to females having one or more of those disorders. While the similarities between men and women with cancer are numerous, there are implications that come from blood cancers that are absolutely unique to women.

Analysis

One major facet of blood cancers in women that is certainly unique to that gender would be its impact on fertility, what happens when cancer strikes during a pregnancy and ideas along those lines. Not only is the cancer itself and its ravages on the body a concern, there are also effects rendered from the drugs and other treatments given for those cancers. Even if the survival rate is high for a given cancer, the body can be worn down a great deal by the treatment that gets a woman to that point and fertility is just one of the things that is most certainly affected and changed. One study on this general topic looked at the impact of fertility when it came to high doses of a drug that is known as Melphalan. The technique, otherwise referred to as high-dose Melphalan (HDM) is an "integral component of conditioning regiments for autologous and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for patients with malignant and non-malignant diseases (Even-Or et al., 2016). The study assessed the fertility-related results of eight women who took and a regimen of HDM and it was found that considerable damage was rendered upon the reproduction system due to the treatments given. Even with that happenstance, half of the women (four of the eight) were still able to bear children after the treatment course had completed. However, it has to be noted that there was an early referral to a fertility clinic in all cases and there was also a good amount of long-term follow-up when it came to the women involved (Even-Or et al., 2016).

When it comes to fertility and the ability to have children, the stakes get ratcheted up quite a bit when there is cancer present during a pregnancy. One study found by the author reveals work on this subject. Indeed, they looked at the incidences and outcomes of women that had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma during part or all of their pregnancy. The study was rather expansive in nature as it covered nearly eight million different births. The study's abstract explains that this particular lymphoma is a "rare" form of cancer and it can affect women of all ages. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that occurs during pregnancy is classified in its own way as it is often referred to as pregnancy-associated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, or PANHL. Of the eight million births looked at, there was 427 cases of PANHL overall. This is a rate of 5.39 per 100,000 births. This is a rise in terms of year-to-year rates from 4.44 out of 100,000 in the first year to 7.17 out of 100,000 at the end of the nine-year period. Generally, white women were more likely to get the cancer in question than other races. The usual age range, as one might expect, was 25-34 years old. Pre-eclampsia and caesarian section births were more common with cancer-stricken mothers than those without the cancer. Of course, the mortality rates of both the mothers and fetuses was much higher for the cancer group. Given that cancer will absolutely kill someone if not treated or stopped, this is of no surprise. Given this and the other obvious implications, women that fall in the PANHL group should be in specialized treatment and birthing centers as opposed to getting more generic and regular care due to their unique circumstances, risk factors and other challenges that are in play (El-Messidi, Patenaude & Abenhaim, 2015).

Another study on the subject introduces another factor into the equation when it comes to hormones and reproduction in general. Indeed, a study that centered more on myeloma than leukemia found that there is a realistic and genuine concern when it comes to hormone therapy and the women that take supplements to boost their estrogen or other hormones. It is widely known that female sex hormones...

However, it is also a strong possibility that the exogenous use of hormones can have an effect on the risk of myeloma emerging and advancing in a female patient. This is not known for sure and this has been openly admitted as recently as January of 2016. Indeed, Costas et al. (2016) notes that multiple myeloma etiology "remains unclear" due to a number of previous investigations being "underpowered" when it came to detecting associations between the use of the hormone and cancer rates in the same patients. Even so, there is some data to point to. For example, the International Multiple Myeloma Consortium had some great individual data that painted a particular picture. The did exogenous hormone use on 1,072 women and also had about 3,541 women in a control group. With 95% confidence intervals in place, they assert that there is no added danger of exogenous hormone use. That being said, they note that men are more likely to get multiple myeloma and hormonal issues and levels cannot be dismissed as a reason why this is the case (Costas et al., 2016).
There are other topics relating to blood cancers that can and should get a mention beyond pregnancy and fertility-related issues. Indeed, there are many people in the food realm of scholarly research and study that are very concerned about artificial and sugar-based sweeteners and whether they can cause cancer in women. A study published in 2012 opined that there is great concern that both types of sweeteners may very well increase the rate of lymphoma and leukemia in women. The news seems to be good for now, as the study consulted for this report did not find a clear or even faint causal link between the consumption of soda and cancer. To use the words of the study's results, "there was no significant association between soda intake and risks of NHL and multiple myeloma" (Schernhammer et al., 2012). However, the study was only clearing when it came to women. Some of the implications for men were not nearly as nice as some NHL risks were potentially higher with men. But of course, women face plenty of potential health landmines when it comes to other things (Schernhammer et al., 2012).

Some blood-borne cancers start with a proverbial whimper and creep up over time. However, there are other cancers that can ravage women that are quite nasty and they ramp up that nastiness quite quickly. Indeed, one example of this is some cases of acute myeloblastic leukemia. The onset of this cancer iteration is revealed through a lupus-like "eruption" that strikes the body very hard. One case in particular was a woman that initially reported a malar eruption, joint pains and a diffuse rash. Indeed, this is much more emblematic of lupus than anything else but this woman ended up having cancer ... not lupus. It should be noted, however, that roughly half of all myeloblastic leukemia cases (AML) have symptoms that show and manifest on the skin (Cedeno-Laurent et al., 2016).

The last source was a case where a blood cancer manifested as another disease in many ways but only one disorder was actually present. However, there are other situations that involved blood cancers where comorbidity with another disease is absolutely prevalent or at least possible. One such example is a suggested linkage between multiple sclerosis (MS) and childhood leukemia risk. Indeed, it was found that there are certain MS "markers" that are also associated with a risk of childhood leukemia. These markers are known as the HLA-DRA, HLA-C and IFNG markers. Beyond that, there seems to be strong trends as it relates to gender and these disorders being present concurrently. Women in particular are behind the proverbial eight ball in that women that have acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was four times as likely to occur in the children of women with MS. This is deemed to be because human leukocyte antigens (the prior mentioned HLA-DRA marker) are present. A further twist against women and girls is that it appears that only girls born to mothers with MS have an increased risk of that cancer. The fact that the genders diverge so distinctly in this regard is a factor that cannot be dismissed or ignored. There would presumably be a gender-based reason such as hormone levels or something else along those lines that would explain why the risks are raised with women and not men.

Conclusion

In general, it is clear that blood-borne cancers are…