Childhood leukemia affects around 2,200 children each year. About 25% of all cancer cases reported in children is leukemia. Leukemia in child occurs when the bone marrow produces excessive numbers of white blood corpuscles. Leukemia can be divided into

• Acute and
• Chronic.

In a child, acute leukemia is more possible. Almost 98% of childhood leukemia found has been acute.

Signs and symptoms

A child with leukemia could show the following signs:

• Shortness of breath
• Tiredness
• Pale skin and anemia
• Poor appetite

Besides this, Symptoms of child leukemia may include a few the following:

• An infection that does not heal
• Quick bleeding/ bruising
• Rashes
• Joint pain
• Weakness
• Swelling of lymph nodes
• Headache, vomiting and even seizures
• Night sweats
• Enlarged Thymus.

Diagnosis

Leukemia in children is diagnosed by the following procedure:

The doctor takes a sample of the bone marrow by injecting a needle in the hip of the child. The doctor also performs a spinal tap to make sure that leukemia has not affected the central nervous system. Now, lab tests are done to identify the type of leukemia.

Treatment

Most common forms of treatments for childhood leukemia include chemotherapy and use of drugs. Chemotherapy can have short term side-effects like vomiting, hair loss etc and a few problems later on have also been reported.

In some children, leukemia returns, in such cases, bone marrow transplant could be suggested. Stem cells are removed from the bone marrow of the patient or a donor for this procedure. Radiation therapy is resorted to only when leukemia affects the central nervous system.

Prognosis

A doctor looks into the following factors before a prognosis is obtained:

• The total health of the child
• The stage at which leukemia in child was discovered
• The other similar cases that have been encountered in medical history
• The doctor’s own experience with such cases etc
• The prognosis helps the parents/ guardian to understand what the chances of the child’s survival are and how the child could be helped. However, no prognosis should be taken as final as there have been cases that have proved many a doctor wrong.
• Gene mutations have been discovered recently that can help to predict a chance of childhood leukemia recurrence. These are pretty accurate and with further development in technology a better diagnosis could be given.

Prevention

Although there is no known reason to pinpoint at exactly what causes childhood leukemia, there have been certain things that have been know to accelerate it. Avoiding these might at least decrease the chances of leukemia in child. Some things that you could do would include:

• Do not smoke in the presence of the child. Passive smoking causes many health hazards including several types of cancer.
• Do not expose your kid to benzene. Gasoline, paints, plastics etc in have benzene that could trigger leukemia.
• Try to decrease the intake of synthetic food and food that has been sprayed with insecticide, pesticide etc.
• Breastfeed your child. It gives the child better immunity against leukemia.