What causes leukemia?
The root cause of leukemia is a genetic alteration of the progenitor cells in the bone marrow that produces blood cell lines. These progenitor cells are divided into myeloid and lymphoid types, giving rise to red blood cells, granulocytes, lymphocytes, and natural killer cells. When there’s a genetic lesion in these cells, they become incapable of differentiating immature cells into mature cells and release them to the bloodstream ahead of time to keep on replicating without any control. There’s also an absence of a cell command called apoptosis or programmed cellular death, which detects genetic alterations in a given cell and triggers self-destruction to protect the integrity of the cell lines.