Which cancer involves white blood cells?

• A. Lymphoma
• B. Leukemia
• C. Myeloma
• D. Anemia

Answer: (B)

White blood cells are the immune system’s frontline cells, and leukemia is a cancer that starts in the bone marrow causing uncontrolled production of white blood cells. These abnormal cells crowd out healthy blood cells, leading to infections, fatigue, and bleeding tendencies. Lymphoma also involves lymphocytes but typically arises in lymph nodes and lymphatic tissue rather than a systemic overgrowth of white cells in the blood. Multiple myeloma affects plasma cells in the bone marrow, another white blood cell lineage, but it isn’t the general overproduction of white blood cells. Anemia is not a cancer at all but a deficiency of red blood cells. So the cancer most characteristically involving white blood cells is leukemia.