Survey suggests more than half of adults are unable to identify common signs of leukemia UK News

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A survey has suggested that more than half of British adults cannot identify any symptoms of leukemia, with a charity warning that some signs may be wrong about COVID-19.

The proportion of people who said they did not know any symptoms of the UK’s third largest cancer killer has risen by 4% since a similar survey in 2018.

The survey, conducted by Blood Cancer UK, found that 56% of people couldn’t name any signs – compared to 52% of participants who were asked three years ago.

The charity said the lack of public awareness about the condition was “extremely worrying”.

The results, which came one day before the start of Leukemia Awareness Month, showed that only 1% of people surveyed identified a fever as a sign of illness.

Shortness of breath was a symptom noted in only 3%, raising concerns that this sign, along with fever and fatigue, could lead to many conditions being confused with COVID-19 and left undiagnosed.

Awareness of other symptoms has remained more or less the same since 2018.

Less than a third (30%) of people knew fatigue was a common sign, while 11% correctly identified bruising and 10% noted weight loss.

Only one in 20 respondents identified pain, 2% reported recurrent infections, and lumps and night sweats were noted in 1%.

The charity says 1 in 19 people will be diagnosed with leukemia, including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, at some point in their lives, and they kill more people each year in the UK than breast or prostate cancer.

Worthing’s mum, 25-year-old Gemma Thrower started experiencing groin pain a few months after her pregnancy in 2019, which was initially thought to be sciatica.

Photo: Her mother, Gemma Throrer, 25, has been diagnosed with leukemia

The pain got worse until she was sent for a blood test in March of this year and after a week in the hospital, she was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma.

Now with her young daughter, she is facing an eight-month course of chemotherapy.

She said, “When I heard the word cancer, my heart fell on my stomach and I immediately thought of my daughter and what that meant for my family.”

“But after researching the disease on the Leukemia UK website, it became clear that many people had survived this type of cancer and that my life didn’t have to stop, not forever anyway.”

Leukemia symptoms can be varied and often very vague. Here are some of the signs:

Constant and unexplained fatigue Unexplained weight loss.

Kate Keatley, Head of Support Services at Blood Cancer UK, said: “Unfortunately, symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss and night sweats can sometimes be ignored or underestimated and the outcome can be devastating.

“During the height of the epidemic, we saw far fewer people diagnosed with leukemia, and one reason for this could be that some of the symptoms of leukemia can be confused with COVID.

“It is very concerning that public awareness that these could be markers of leukemia is still very low.”

She urged people to make sure they “schedule an appointment” with a GP if they have unexplained and persistent symptoms.

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