Hematological malignancy

Hematological malignancies are the types of cancer that affect blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes. As the three are intimately connected through the immune system, a disease affecting one of the three will often affect the others as well: although lymphoma is technically a disease of the lymph nodes, it often spreads to the bone marrow, affecting the blood and occasionally producing a paraprotein.

Chromosomal translocations are a common cause of these diseases, while this is uncommon in solid tumors. This leads to a different approach in diagnosis and treatment of hematological malignancies.

Although hematological malignancies are a form of cancer, they are generally treated by specialists in hematology, although in many hospitals oncology specialists also manage these diseases. ("Hematology/Oncology" is a single subspecialty of Internal Medicine; there are also surgical and radiation oncologists.)

There are two normal cell lineages from which hematological malignancies derive, myeloid and lymphoid. The former normally produces granulocytes, erythrocytes, thrombocytes, macrophages and mast cells, the latter B, T, NK and plasma cells. Lymphomas, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and myeloma are from the lymphoid line, while acute and chronic myelogenous leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative diseases are myeloid in origin.

Classification and external resources