Classification of Hematology Diseases

Diseases with their roots in any form of blood disorders are collectively referred to as hematological diseases. Hematological diseases is an umbrella term that includes a bunch of diseases, such as anemia, sickle cell diseases, hemophilia, just to name a few. These diseases since years have posed myriad challenges to physicians and clinicians. As the count of such diseases is very large, physicians classified various hematological problems into four distinct categories. This classification has helped physicians to treat the ever-challenging hematological problems in a better way.

Hematological diseases belonging to a specific category share some common symptoms and treatment methods. Let’s have a deeper insight into this classification.

Classification Of Hematological Diseases

Hematological problems can be classified into four major categories. These are:

Hemoglobinopathy – It is a form of genetic disorder that is characterized by abnormality in one of the globin chains of the hemoglobin molecule. Thalassemia and sickle-cell diseases are some of the widely known diseases of this category. Hemoglobinopathies are very common in ethnic Africans, populations from Southeast Asia, and Mediterranean basin.

Symptoms of hemoglobinopathy include moderate to acute anemia, even hemolytic anemia in some of the rare cases. In sickle-cell diseases, red blood cells take distinct shapes under the unavailability of oxygen. This condition could lead to plethora of problems, including circulatory problems and damaged organs. On the other hand, thalassemia is characterized by poor product ion of red blood cells, a condition scientifically known as erythropoiesis.

Anemia – Anemia is the most commonly known form of hematological diseases. The term includes a variety of diseases characterized by quantitative as well as qualitative loss of hemoglobin from blood. As hemoglobin carries oxygen to various organs of human body, anemia usually leads to lack of oxygen in organs. This condition is scientifically referred to as ‘hypoxia of organs’.

However, anemia can further be classified into three categories, namely hemorrhage, hemolysisi, and hematopoiesis. While hemorrhage is the excessive loss of blood and hemolysis includes blood cell destruction on large scale, hematopoiesis includes poor production of red blood cells.

Hematological Malignancies – These are the form of cancers that affect bone marrow, blood and lymph nodes. As all the three are associated with the immune system of human body, a disease affecting any of these three could potentially harm the other organs as well. Chromosomal translocations form the major causes of the diseases that come under hematological malignancies. However, chromosomal translocations are not very common in solid tumors, which eventually triggered the requirement of distinct diagnosis and treatment techniques.

Coagulopathy – Coagulopathy is a scientific term that encompasses the study of the diseases related with blood clotting mechanism. Improper coagulation mechanism could lead to a range of problems for human beings. While low coagulating capabilities of blood lead to excessive bleeding during injuries, over coagulation result in severe troubles like cardiac failure.

Conclusively, the classification discussed in the preceding sections aided physicians to deal with hematological diseases in an effective way. Moreover, it also paved way to perform focused research in developing treatment techniques for different hematological disorders.