Bone fractures
Experiencing bone fractures in older women is often a signal of low mineralization. Anyone would think that a senior woman with a bone fracture has osteoporosis. But that’s not always the case. Leukemia may also cause bone fractures, adding to the risk of women along with osteoporosis and osteopenia.
In some cases, doctors reach the diagnosis of leukemia by having a patient with fever of unknown origin along with weight loss and a sudden bone fracture. When symptoms overlap like this, we shouldn’t take bone fractures lightly, and remember that osteoporosis-related fractures usually appear in the femur, the hips, and the spine.
There are many signs and symptoms of leukemia, and all of them should be confirmed by a series of blood tests. However, suspecting leukemia usually requires a combination of the symptoms we have described above and many others we can find in each subtype.
References
O’Donnell, M. R., Tallman, M. S., Abboud, C. N., Altman, J. K., Appelbaum, F. R., Arber, D. A., … & De Lima, M. (2017). Acute myeloid leukemia, version 3.2017, NCCN clinical practice guidelines in oncology. Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, 15(7), 926-957.
Ghiaur, G., Wroblewski, M., & Loges, S. (2015, July). Acute myelogenous leukemia and its microenvironment: a molecular conversation. In Seminars in hematology (Vol. 52, No. 3, pp. 200-206). WB Saunders.
Nabhan, C., & Rosen, S. T. (2014). Chronic lymphocytic leukemia: a clinical review. Jama, 312(21), 2265-2276.
Faderl, S., Talpaz, M., Estrov, Z., O’Brien, S., Kurzrock, R., & Kantarjian, H. M. (1999). The biology of chronic myeloid leukemia. New England Journal of Medicine, 341(3), 164-172.