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What are the signs and symptoms of hairy cell leukemia?
On this video

Seema Bhat, MD
Transcript
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What are the signs and symptoms of hairy cell leukemia?
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So the signs and symptoms of hairy cell leukemia patients can have.
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As I told you, this disease affects the counts, the blood cell counts.
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So the blood cells are broadly of three different types.
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The white cells which are infection fighting cells,
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the red cells which we measure by hemoglobin. And platelets,
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these are cells which prevent bleeding.
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So when your white cell count is low, these patients are prone to infections
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so they can have infections.
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If your hemoglobin is low, these patients are tired,
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they get fatigued.
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Those are the symptoms. Shortness of breath, those are the symptoms of low hemoglobin.
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And if the platelets are low, they can have bruising or even bleeding.
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So infections is a big part.
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Fatigue is a big part.
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And patients with hairy cell leukemia
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can also have their spleen enlarge and get symptoms from englarged spleen.
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Spleen is an organ
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which is present on the upper
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left part of our belly or abdomen,
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and where hairy cell leukemia
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can accumulate in the spleen and the spleen get can get bigger
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and as it gets bigger it occupies space in tummy.
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And what patients feel like is either a dragging pain or fullness in that area,
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or when they try to eat a meal, they get full quickly.
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That's called early satiety.
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So that's one of the symptoms of hairy cell leukemia.
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And patients can also have symptoms like fever, unintentional weightloss.
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So these are some of the common symptoms.