September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month
Blood Cancers: Leukemia, Lymphoma, Myeloma
Blood cancers affect the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. They stop your blood from doing many of its normal tasks such as fighting off infections and preventing serious bleeding.1 There are three main types of blood cancer:
- Leukemia—cancer of the bone marrow and blood
- Lymphoma—cancers that start in the lymph system, mainly the lymph nodes
- Myeloma—cancer of the plasma cells
Blood cancers can affect everyone, even children. In fact, leukemia is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths among those under the age of 20.2
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 people are diagnosed with a type of blood cancer and more than 50,000 people die from these cancers each year.
In most cases, the actual causes of blood cancers are still unknown; but, a lot of progress has been made in treating people with blood cancers. Survival rates for those who have certain types of blood cancer have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in the last 60 years.3
For more information on blood cancers please visit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) 
website. LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer.
