September is Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness Month

join with the aacr to find better ways to prevent and treat leukemia and lymphoma

Leukemia and lymphoma are cancers that affect the blood and bone marrow, respectively.

Leukemia starts in the cells that form blood. Normally, most blood cells develop from cells in the bone marrow called stem cells. In a person with leukemia, the bone marrow makes abnormal white blood cells (leukemia cells). Unlike normal blood cells, leukemia cells don’t die when they should. They can crowd out normal white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. Consequently, it’s hard for normal blood cells to do their work.

Experts expect 62,770 new cases of leukemia in the United States in 2024, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Also, 23,670 deaths are expected in 2024.

Major Types of Leukemia

The four major types of leukemia are:

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which affects myeloid cells and grows quickly;
Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), which affects myeloid cells and grows slowly;
Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), which affects lymphoid cells and grows quickly; and
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), which also affects lymphoid cells, but grows slowly.

CLL is one of the most common types of leukemia in adults. ALL is the most common type of leukemia in children.

Types of Lymphoma

Lymphomas begin in cells of the lymph system, which is a part of the immune system. Lymph tissue is found throughout the body. As a result, lymphoma can begin almost anywhere. The disease occurs in two types: Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

Both types can occur in adults and children. An estimated 80,620 people in the United States will develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2024, according to the NCI. Approximately 20,140 people will die from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. For Hodgkin lymphoma, 8,570 new cases and 910 deaths are estimated for 2024, according to the NCI.

one person’s story

Alexander Gonzalez Franco received a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He had chemotherapy, but it stopped working for him. However, he found improvement with CAR T-cell therapy. Read his story in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2022.

How the AACR Supports leukemia and lymphoma research

Lymphoma- and Leukemia-Focused Conferences

In June 2024, the AACR held a meeting on “Advances in Malignant Lymphoma: Maximizing the Basic-Translational Interface for Clinical Application.” This international meeting was organized in cooperation with the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma and in conjunction with the AACR journal Blood Cancer Discovery. Experts from around the world presented and discussed the latest findings on lymphoma biology, etiology, epigenetics, and genomics. Furthermore, participants discussed new approaches in CAR T-cell therapy, and chemo-free approaches to lymphoma.

Supporting Research

The AACR awards grants to investigators with promising research related to leukemia and lymphoma. Grants in place include:

Mingzeng Zhang, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, received the 2023 AACR-Incyte Immuno-oncology Research Fellowship to study “Quantitative immune profiling of follicular lymphoma for precision therapy.”
The 2023 Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG Cat) was awarded to Katherine Rae Antel, MD, PhD, University of Cape Town, to support her study of “Liquid biopsy for the diagnosis of lymphoma in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
The 2022 Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG Cat) grant went to Leonardo Alves de Souza Rios, PhD, University of Cape Town. He is investigating “Pathobiology of HIV-associated lymphomas—Defining the role of HIV-1 Tat.”
Rizine Robert Mzikamanda, MBBS, MMED, Baylor College of Medicine, received the 2023 Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG Cat) grant. He is studying “Acute leukemia diagnostics in Malawian children.”
Hai Dang Nguyen, PhD, University of Minnesota, received the 2022 AACR Career Development Award to Further Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Cancer Research to study ”Delineating ATR response in U2AF1 mutant hematologic malignancies.”
The 2022 AACR-MPM Oncology Charitable Foundation Transformative Cancer Research Grant was awarded to Xiaotian Zhang, PhD, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He is working to “Dissect the novel function of mutant NPM1 on transcriptional hijacking” in myeloid neoplasms.
The recipient of the AACR-Cancer Research UK Transatlantic Fellowship for 2021-2025 is Ching Ting (Justin) Loke, MD, PhD, University of Birmingham, to study “Understanding the clonal structure and chemoresistance of ASXL1/RUNX1 AML.”