A hematologist at the 37 military hospital, Lieutenant Commander Dr. Emmanuel Sarkodie has bemoaned the inadequate numbers of hematologists in the country. Speaking on Radio Univers’ Good Health show, the hematologist stated that there are only 12 hematologists in the country.
“… as a matter of fact, there about twelve hematologists in the country and about 8 are in Accra, 2 in cape coast and just 1 in Kumasi. All the other parts of the country, we don’t have any hematologist”.
Lieutenant Commander Dr. Emmanuel Sarkodie stated that leukemia cannot be cured but can be managed using a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. This bone marrow transplant is gotten from a donor who is leukemia free. This bone marrow transplant he stated is quite costly and not performed in Ghana currently. He attributed the reason why this important surgery is not performed in the country is due to the inexistence of facilities and inadequate hematologists in the country.
Leukemia is a blood cancer that starts from the bone marrow and spills over into the blood leading to high number of white blood cells in the blood. In other words, leukemia can also be referred to as blood cancer. When an individual has leukemia, the white blood cells(leukocytes) in the individual are immortalized thereby crowding out the other cells. Leukocytes or white blood cells have a short lifespan of five to twenty-one days and are essential for good health and protection against illness and diseases.
Unfortunately, the cause of leukemia is not clearly known. However, there are some associations of this disease. These include long term exposure to radiation, pesticides and smoking. Dr. Emmanuel Sarkodie also said that all types of cancers are deadly hence leukemia cannot be tagged as being the deadliest of all cancers. Leukemia he added is not entirely hereditary.
The main types of leukemia he stated include acute and chronic leukemia. Under the acute leukemia, there are acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia. On the other hand, there is also chronic myeloid leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Symptoms of leukemia include fatigue, frequent infection, quick bruising, delay in blood clotting and anemia. These symptoms he added are also symptoms for other ailments but upon suspicion and running of tests leukemia is detected.
He added that acute myeloid, chronic lymphocytic and chronic myeloid leukemia usually affect the elderly. He further stated that age is an association of leukemia “so the younger you are the relatively safe you are compared to the elderly generation”.
Lieutenant Commander Dr Sarkodie also made mention that though chemotherapy can be used to treat leukemia, it most times ends up destroying the good cells in the body in addition to the leukemia cells. Hence after chemotherapy, a patient is advised to be given a second treatment which is the supportive therapy. The supportive therapy is when the patient is given some medication to transfuse patient’s blood level is when it is below the normal level and medication to boost the number of white blood cells.
He finally advised leukemia patients to seek the services of a hematologist since leukemia cannot be treated with herbal medication.
By: Jennifer Esi Aniwa/Radio Univers 105.7 MHz
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