Why leukemia in children

Leukemia is the most common form of cancer in childhood. It affects approximately 3, children each year in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of childhood cancers. Children's Hospital's main campus is located in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. Our main hospital address is:.

Pittsburgh, PA In addition to the main hospital, Children's has many convenient locations in other neighborhoods throughout the greater Pittsburgh region.

For general information and inquiries , please call To make an appointment , please call from 7 a. Monday through Friday. Powell, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. What Is Leukemia?

What Are the Types of Leukemia? Kids with anemia may: look pale feel very tired, weak, or short of breath while playing bruise very easily, get a lot of nosebleeds , or bleed for a long time after even a minor cut Other symptoms of leukemia can include: pain in the bones or joints, sometimes causing a limp swollen lymph nodes swollen glands in the neck, groin, or elsewhere poor appetite and weight loss fevers with no other symptoms belly pain Sometimes leukemia can spread, or metastasize.

What Causes Leukemia? Kids have a greater chance of developing leukemia if they have: an identical twin who had leukemia at a young age a non-identical twin or other siblings with leukemia had radiation therapy or chemotherapy for other types of cancer taken medicines to suppress their immune system after an organ transplant a genetic health problem, such as: Li-Fraumeni syndrome Down syndrome Klinefelter syndrome neurofibromatosis ataxia telangectasia Fanconi anemia Who Gets Leukemia?

The different types of leukemia affect different age groups: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia ALL is most common in children 2 to 8 years old. Acute myelogenous leukemia AML can happen at any age, but most cases happen in kids younger than 2 and teens. Chronic myelogenous leukemia is most common in teens.

Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia JMML affects infants and toddlers. How Is Leukemia Diagnosed? To find out if a child has leukemia, a doctor will: Ask questions about the symptoms. Research may look for better ways to target the disease more accurately.

It also may look for new ways to use antibodies, and better stem cell transplant methods. During the induction phase, chemotherapy and medications are given. Sometimes radiation is included, too.

The idea is to kill the leukemia cells in the blood as well as their parent cells in the bone marrow. The goal of the induction phase is remission. The Induction phase may last about a month and can be repeated if the goal is not reached. Treatment is continued even though leukemia cells may not be visible.

Though the leukemia cells may not be seen in a blood test or bone marrow examination, it is still possible that the cells are present in the body. During the maintenance phase, less intense chemotherapy is given over a long time. This phase can last months to several years.

Regular visits to your child's doctor are required. This is to make sure the treatment is working and to check for any recurrent disease.

These visits are also needed to take care of any side effects of the treatment. Relapse is when the bone marrow begins to make cancer cells again. There is no way to predict this. It can happen at any phase of treatment. It may also occur months or years after treatment has ended. The expected outcome and treatment options after relapse depend on several things. One is the length of time between the diagnosis and when the leukemia comes back.

The expected outcome and next steps also depend on where the leukemia reappears. Sometimes it is just seen in the bone marrow. However, it may come back in other parts of the body as well. The outlook and long-term survival are different for every cancer.

Getting to a doctor and starting aggressive therapy quickly are key for the best outcome. A child with leukemia needs constant follow-up. Survivors can suffer from side effects of radiation and chemotherapy. Other cancers can occur as well. Monitoring for these diseases is crucial. Developing healthy habits like eating right and not smoking is important, too. New methods are being found every day to improve treatment and to decrease side effects from the treatment for this disease.

The term five-year survival rate means the percentage of patients who live at least five years after their cancer is diagnosed. With acute leukemias, these patients are probably cured. It is very rare for leukemia to return later than this. Current five-year survival rates are based on large numbers of children who were treated more than five years ago.

Every child and every cancer are different. Childhood cancer and its treatment can create health problems later in life. This may mean a higher risk for heart, lung and kidney disease. It may also mean mental or emotional problems, issues with reproduction, or new cancers See section on Outlook. As they grow older, childhood cancer survivors can use help to stay on top of these risks. This program gives medical care and mental and social support to childhood cancer survivors, into adulthood.

Caring for a youngster being treated for leukemia requires constant attention. You should call your doctor, nurse or the oncologist on call immediately if your child, adolescent or young adult has :.

The second mutation arises after birth and is different in the two twins. Population studies in people together with animal experiments suggest this second genetic 'hit' can be triggered by infection -- probably by a range of common viruses and bacteria.

In one unique cluster of cases investigated by Professor Greaves and colleagues in Milan, all cases were infected with flu virus.

Researchers also engineered mice with an active leukemia-initiating gene, and found that when they moved them from an ultra-clean, germ-free environment to one that had common microbes, the mice developed ALL. Population studies have found that early exposure to infection in infancy such as day care attendance and breast feeding can protect against ALL, most probably by priming the immune system. This suggests that childhood ALL may be preventable. Professor Greaves is now investigating whether earlier exposure to harmless 'bugs' could prevent leukemia in mice -- with the possibility that it could be prevented in children through measures to expose them to common but benign microbes.

Professor Greaves emphasises two caveats. Firstly, while patterns of exposure to common infections appear to be critical, the risk of childhood leukemia, like that of most common cancers, is also influenced by inherited genetic susceptibility and chance. Secondly, infection as a cause applies to ALL specifically -- other rarer types including infant leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia probably have different causal mechanisms.

But it has always struck me that something big was missing, a gap in our knowledge -- why or how otherwise healthy children develop leukemia and whether this cancer is preventable. The research strongly suggests that ALL has a clear biological cause, and is triggered by a variety of infections in predisposed children whose immune systems have not been properly primed.