Have you ever felt exhausted and fatigued or found blotches and red spots on your skin? Ever fallen prey to fever or an infection that has never struck you before or felt out of your skin and self-treated yourself to a dose of drugs whose repercussions you aren’t even aware of?
These are some of major symptoms of aplastic anemia.
Aplastic anemia is a disorder in which the bone marrow fails to produce enough blood cells. The bone marrow is the soft, inner part of the bones. The blood cells your body needs are: red blood cells (to carry oxygen), white blood cells (to fight infection), and platelets (to control bleeding). These cells are made by blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow. In aplastic anemia, the stem cells are damaged and there are very few of them. As a result, the number of blood cells produced are extremely low. In most cases of aplastic anemia, all 3 types of blood cells are low (which is called pancytopenia). Rarely, just one of the cell lines, such as red cells, white cells, or platelets, is abnormal.
Common symptoms of aplastic anemia are traumatic bleeding, severe tiredness and exhaustion, low hemoglobin, red and black patches on the skin, infections, weakness, restlessness, fatigue and high fever. Aplastic anemia is not a type of cancer but may be associated with certain cancers (especially those affecting the bone marrow, such as leukemia) or cancer treatments. A small number of patients with aplastic anemia may develop leukemia. Aplastic anemia is caused by destruction of the blood-forming stem cells in your bone marrow.About 75 out of 100 cases of acquired aplastic anemia are idiopathic. This means they have no known cause. However, some studies illustrate that excessive exposure to radiation, chemicals, toxins and drugs, heavy medications and low hemoglobincan lead to aplastic anemia.
The prevalence of aplastic Anemia in the city is seen to be increasing due to the environmental changes. It has been seen that higher exposure to toxins and chemicals, higher are the chances to attract this ailment.
Aplastic can be diagnosed by either a “Complete blood count” (CBC) and test will show that the red cell count, white cell count, and platelet count are low or a ‘bone marrow biopsy’ through which a bone marrow sample is examined. Five-year survival rates for patients who receive transplants have been shown to be 82 per cent for patients underneath age 20, 72 per cent for those 20–40 years old, and closer to 50 per cent for patients over age 40. Success rates are better for patients who have donors that are matched siblings and worse for patients who receive their marrow from unrelated donors. The best and easiest way to tackle aplastic is by being cautious about the symptoms, visiting a doctor and getting treated at the initial stage itself. It is very important to understand that timely and early diagnosis of the disease can help save a patient’s life.