Leukemia: Systemic Disease Impact on Oral Health

971 Words2 Pages

There are many systemic diseases that can affect the body in different ways. Diseases like Leukemia, affect the body while on treatment. There are multiple symptoms of how radiation treatment affects the body, and oral cavity. In addition, there are ways to maintain the health of the body and the oral cavity.
“Each year in the United States alone, nearly 32,000 adults and more than 2,000 children develop leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells”. Acute and chronic leukemia are the two kinds of the disease. Acute leukemia developments much more rapidly, chronic leukemia advances gradually, and the immune system is damaged slower. (Panno 36). Leukemia is one of many systemic diseases. Each disease affects the body differently. Leukemia affects the immune system, which affects the body by "feeling extremely sick, complaining of recurrent infections, bleeding, bruising, bone tenderness, fever, chills, sweats, weakness, fatigue, headaches, or swelling in the neck, or armpits”. Otherwise, an individual might have not any indications entirely and the disease might be discovered accidental from a checkup blood examination. When finding acute leukemia typically comes to instant hospitalization. Since leukemia victims require numerous transfusions of blood, patients have to be treated at medical establishments. Acute leukemia is treated by chemotherapy, which contains two stages: an initiation stage, where an individual is forcefully treated with a mixture of strong medications to kill the leukemic cells entirely, and a consolidation stage, using the similar or dissimilar medications, and starts as soon as the illness has gone into remission (Mayfield 1). The normal action for leukemia contains radiation and chemotherapy, which destroys the ca...

... middle of paper ...

...sores. In addition, pain medications could be used to assist discomfort from mouth sores. To help with xerostomia, consumption of water and sugarless beverages can help, or even “sucking on ice chips.” To also help with a dry mouth, the patients’ doctor can prescribe other medications or gels. In conclusion, before continuing onto treatment, the patient should discuss with their doctor about their oral health, and the problems that may happen along the way (“Dental” 1).
All diseases affect the body and mouth differently. Leukemia for example, can be treated by Chemotherapy or blood and bone marrow transplants. Depending how chronic the disease is, those treatments can cause problems in the oral cavity. However, there are ways to prevent or to help those complications. If the patient has any other problems or questions, it would be recommended to talk to their doctor.

Open Document