|  |  | How is blood made? |
All the cells in the blood start their journey in the bone marrow, which is the blood-producing factory where stem cells live. A stem cell is a 'mother' cell in that it divides to form three main types of blood cell. These are the red blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets. White blood cells can be either lymphoid cells (T-cells and B-cells) or myeloid cells (neutrophils are particularly important).
 | What can go wrong? |
The production of blood cells is normally tightly controlled by the regulation of genes and their protein products. This control can go haywire, often with no identifiable reason. Sometimes when this happens, a blood cancer can develop. The type of blood cancer you have depends on the stage the first cancer cell had reached when the controls in the development process went wrong. Your doctor/care team will be able to explain this to you. |
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