Child Leukemia
Though leukemia can be divided into acute (develops rapidly) and chronic (slow development) types, in a child, leukemia in about 98% cases is of the acute variety. This child leukemia can further be either lymphocytic or myelogenous giving rise to acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) or acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) with incidences of 60% and 38% respectively among all child leukemia.
Child Leukemia
Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is also seen in children but is very rare as is juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JML). JML starts from myeloid cells but is neither as fast as acute myelogenous leukemia nor as slow as chronic myelogenous leukemia. If the patient of JML is a child, leukemia is characterized by an enlarged spleen and a high white blood cell count.
The incidence of child leukemia varies drastically with the age. It is about 17% between 0 and 1 year , increases dramatically to 46% for children between 2 to 3 years of age and then decreases to reach a figure of 9% for 19-year olds.
The incidence of acute lymphocytic child leukemia was found to be the maximum among children between 2-3 years old and decreased from more than 80 per million to 20 per million for children between the ages of 8 and 10 years.
Child leukemia rates are far more for Caucasians than for African Americans. When incidence data for child leukemia in Caucasian and African-American children is compared year -wise, it is noticed that the incidence figures for Caucasian children is substantially more. This is especially apparent in the age group of 2-3 year olds where the incidence in white children is almost 3 times that in African-American children.
The general survival prospects for child leukemia have improved over the last few years with the advance in medicine and health-care. In case of acute lymphocytic child leukemia, the maximum favourable outcome of treatment is in children whose leukemia has been diagnosed when they were between 1 to 10 years of age.
The most common symptoms of child leukemia are anemia, dyspnea (shortness of breath), easy bruising (which may be spontaneous in some cases), recurring infections, abdominal distress and bone tenderness or pain.
Diagnosis of child leukemia may be done through a bone marrow aspiration or a bone marrow or lymph node biopsy, complete blood count, CAT scans and MR Imaging, x-ray and ultrasound examination and a lumbar tap to rule out any cerebo-spinal fluid infections.
Treatment for child leukemia has to address the symptoms which result from leukemia as well as treat the leukemia itself. Most child leukemia regimes include chemotherapy,
radiation therapy, transplantation of the bone marrow, medication to reduce or reverse the damage caused by leukemia or its treatment, blood transfusions and antibiotics. The latest boon for treatment of child leukemia is the availability of stem cell therapy for reversing the damage or non-functionality of the bone marrow.