What is "acute lymphocytic leukemia" (ALL)?
Acute lymphocytic leukemia- or sometimes referred to as acute lymphogenous leukemia- are, is a subtype or a type of leukemia. There are two subtypes of leukemias. There's acute lymphogenous leukemias and acute lymphoid leukemias.The acute lymphoid leukemias I think are the minority and happen less often than the acute myloid leukemias. The interesting thing about acute lymphoid leukemias is they are sometimes on a spectra of disease similar to lymphomas. So I think the critical aspect here, that differentiates these types of leukemias- the lymphoid leukemias versus the myloid leukemias or better said the ALL's versus the AML's- is that we're dealing with a different type of white blood cell. In the aucte lymphoid leukemias, or the ALL's, we're dealing with the lymphocytes which is a subtype of white blood cells. In the acute myloid leukemia, or the AML's, we're dealing with the myloid cells. The myloid cells produce white blood cells that help fight infection. The lymphoid cells do that in a different way. So it's a different population of cells that are being affected by a mutation.
