With September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, it is a good time to learn about three of the most common types of cancers in children: acute lymphocytic leukaemia, neuroblastoma and paediatric brain tumours.
ALL is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
It’s the most common type of cancer in children, and treatments have a good chance for a cure.
ALL can also occur in adults, although the chance of a cure is greatly reduced.
Signs and symptoms can include bleeding from the gums, bone pain, fever, pale skin, shortness of breath, and swollen lymph nodes in and around the neck, armpits, abdomen or groin.
Treatment includes chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiation and bone marrow transplant.
There’s also a specialised treatment called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.
This treatment takes your body’s germ-fighting T cells, engineers them to fight the cancer, and then infuses them back into your body.
Neuroblastoma is a cancer that develops from immature nerve cells found in several areas of the body.
It most commonly affects children aged five years or younger, although it may rarely occur in older children.
Signs and symptoms can vary, depending on what part of the body is affected.
Neuroblastoma in the abdomen – the most common form – can cause abdominal pain, a mass under the skin that isn’t tender when touched, and changes in bowel habits, such as diarrhoea or constipation.
Neuroblastoma in the chest can cause wheezing, chest pain, and changes to the eyes, including drooping eyelids and unequal pupil size.
Other signs and symptoms that can indicate neuroblastoma include back pain, fever, unexplained weight loss and bone pain.
The treatment plan is based on several factors that affect the child’s prognosis, including the child’s age, the stage of the cancer, the types of cells involved in the cancer, and whether there are any abnormalities in the chromosomes and genes.
Treatment can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow transplant and immunotherapy.
There are many types of paediatric brain tumours.
Some are non-cancerous (benign) and some are cancerous (malignant).
Signs and symptoms in children vary greatly, depending on the brain tumour type, size, location and rate of growth.
Some may not be easy to diagnose because they’re similar to the symptoms of other conditions.
Some of the more common symptoms include headaches, which may become more frequent and more severe; feeling of increased pressure in the head; unexplained nausea or vomiting; and abrupt onset of vision problems, such as double vision.
Treatment of a paediatric brain tumour depends on the type of tumour, its location within the brain, whether it has spread, and the child’s age and general health.
Because new treatments and technologies are being developed continually, several options may be available at different points during the course of treatment.
And treatment for brain tumours in children is typically quite different from treatment for adult brain tumours, so it’s important to enlist the expertise and experience of paediatric neurologists and oncologists.
Treatment can include surgery, traditional radiation therapy, proton beam therapy, radiosurgery, chemotherapy and targeted drug therapy. – By Laurel Kelly/Mayo Clinic News Network/Tribune News Service
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