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Most of the symptoms of leukemia can be symptoms of other conditions. Most of the time, these symptoms are not caused by leukemia. If you see any of the symptoms of leukemia in your child, it is important to take your child to see their doctor so they can find the cause of the symptoms and begin treatment, if needed.
Most of the time, the symptoms of leukemia are caused by problems in your child’s bone marrow, which is where this type of blood cancer begins. Symptoms may include:
Again, although many of these symptoms are likely to be caused by something other than leukemia, it is still important to have your child checked out by their doctor. Most cases of childhood leukemia are found because a child had symptoms that made their parent take them to the doctor.
At this time, most diagnoses are symptom-based as there are no widely used screening tests for doctors to find leukemia before it causes symptoms.The exact cause of childhood leukemia is unknown. There are some risk factors that may make it more likely for a child to get leukemia, such as:
If your child has symptoms related to leukemia, your child’s doctor may:
Childhood leukemia is usually treated by a pediatric oncologist, a specialist in childhood cancers. However, there may be several other doctors and specialists on your child’s healthcare team, depending on the nature and severity of your child’s cancer.
Some treatment options include:
Leukemia [loo-KEE-mee-uh] is a type of blood cancer. Blood cancer is a disease that can affect that blood cells, bone marrow, lymph [limf] nodes, and other parts of the lymphatic [lim-FAT-ik] system within your child’s body. There are other types of blood cancer that affect children and teenagers, but. However, leukemia is the most common cancer among them.
Leukemia affects the early blood-forming cells. Usually, it will affect the white blood cells, but it can still affect other types of blood cells. Leukemia can either be fast- (acute) or slow- (chronic) growing. Most cases of childhood leukemia are acute, or fast-growing. Most children are diagnosed with acute lymphocytic [lim-FO-sit-ik] leukemia (ALL) or acute myeloid [my-EL-oid] leukemia (AML).
There are a few different types of leukemia. Each type has different treatment options and different outlooks. As treatments have improved over the years, the chances of survival keep getting better.
Make sure to talk to your doctor about your child’s cancer. Some questions you may want to think about when talking to your child’s doctor are:
If you do not know the answers to these questions, please talk to your child’s doctor about them to make sure you have these questions answered as soon as possible.
Also, make sure to write down any of your own questions, and make sure to talk to your child’s doctor about them. Remember, there are no silly or stupid questions.