What Are the Symptoms of Leukemia in Adults?

Leukemia is a category of cancers usually affecting the white blood cells and can develop in adults as well as children.

Leukemia starts in blood-producing tissues like bone marrow. As the cancer cells multiply, they enter the bloodstream and travel throughout the body. Adult leukemias include chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). While isolated symptoms may indicate one particular type of leukemia or another, most leukemias share a common base of symptoms and signs.

Common and Less Common Adult Symptoms

Many types of adult leukemias do not show any symptoms early on, but once they appear, six common symptoms patients may experience are:

• Paleness

• Fatigue

• Long-lasting infection

• Excessive bruising

• Inexplicable fever

• Breathlessness

• Slow healing

However, less common symptoms do occur, including:

• Painful joints or bones

• Unexpected weight loss

• Bleeding gums or nosebleeds

• Enlarged lymph nodes

• Night sweats

• Loss of appetite

If you feel like you have any of these symptoms and the reason is unexplained, you should speak with your doctor and have your blood cell count tested.

Early Stages of Chronic Leukemias May Be Asymptomatic

Adults with chronic leukemias may not have any symptoms and may be diagnosed through a routine blood test. If so, they simply enter what is known as the active surveillance period. A significant proportion of patients will remain in this category, never requiring further treatment.

Three out of four patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), which is the most common form of leukemia, are diagnosed during routine blood tests and are completely asymptomatic at that time, according to Abhijeet Kumar, MD, an assistant professor specializing at the University of Arizona Health Sciences in Tucson.

The remaining 25%, he says, present with symptoms that include, “more than 10% unintentional weight loss over six months or more, rapidly growing lumps and bumps which are essentially lymph nodes, significant fatigue, and drenching night sweats that require patients to change clothes, and frequent infections – especially of the upper respiratory tract.” For these patients, often the best course to treat these symptoms is to treat the leukemia itself.

See Your Doctor If You’re Suspicious

The symptoms of leukemia are similar for adults, regardless of age. Also, experts note that you cannot screen yourself for leukemia the way you can give yourself a self-breast exam, so if you suspect something is wrong, the best thing to do is see your physician. Even if leukemia is not the cause, the symptoms described here are serious and warrant a thorough evaluation.