The former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi died this Monday morning due to complications derived from the chronic myelomonocytic leukemia that he suffered, according to reports by the Italian media and no official statements have been made for the moment.
Although the specific cause of death has not yet been announced, the truth is that Berlusconi had recently suffered various health problems, in some cases associated with leukemia, such as pneumonia, a urinary infection, and several heart problems.
Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, as clarified by the American nonprofit Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), is a myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative neoplasm: a rare type of blood cancer that combines features of myelodysplastic syndromes (a type of cancer in which immature blood cells in the bone marrow fail to develop into healthy mature blood cells) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (a group of diseases in which the bone marrow makes too many cells of one type).
More specifically, it is a clonal disorder, in which a group of identical cells with a common ancestry multiply uncontrollably.
In chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, this change affects the development of a type of white blood cell called a monocyte. The accumulation of these altered cells ends up affecting the production of other essential blood cells, such as red blood cells or platelets.
In most patients, it is a non-curable disease, but for which treatments can be provided to slow the progression of the pathology and minimize the risk of complications and symptoms.
