The child may need: Chemotherapy: This involves using a mixture of drugs to kill the leukemia cells. It may come as injections, drips, or tablets. Targeted drugs: These are designed to only kill the leukemia cells without damaging healthy cells. Immunotherapy: This medication helps the body attack and destroy the leukemia cells.
Full Answer
What is the treatment for leukemia in children?
The treatment usually consists of two phases. The first aims to kill the leukemia cells in the child’s bone marrow, and the second aims to prevent the cancer from coming back. Chemotherapy: This involves using a mixture of drugs to kill the leukemia cells. It may come as injections, drips, or tablets.
What are the different types of leukemia in children?
The two most common types in children are acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myelogenous leukemia. In a person with leukemia, blood cells are released into the bloodstream before they are fully formed, so there are fewer healthy blood cells in the body.
How old do children have to be to have leukemia?
Most children with ALL are between the ages of 2 and 4 years. Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is the second most common type of leukemia in children. AML is usually seen in very young children and teenagers. Other types of leukemia are rarely seen in children.
What is the prognosis for a child with leukemia?
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. These rates really can’t predict what will happen in your child’s case. Every child and every cancer are different.
What is treatment for pediatric leukemia?
Chemotherapy is the main treatment for childhood leukemia. Your child will get anticancer drugs by mouth, or into a vein or the spinal fluid. To keep leukemia from returning, there may be maintenance therapy in cycles over a period of 2 or 3 years. Sometimes, targeted therapy is also used.
How long is the treatment for childhood leukemia?
The entire length of treatment is typically about 2 to 3 years, with the most intense treatment in the first few months. Children with ALL are typically classified by risk group to make sure that the correct types and doses of drugs are given. Treatment may be more or less intense, depending on the risk group.
What are the chances of a 2 year old surviving leukemia?
Children. According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), the average 5-year survival rate for ALL, the most common type of leukemia in children, is 94.4 percent for those under age 5. There's a slight drop to 92.5 percent for older children under age 15.
Can toddlers recover from leukemia?
With acute leukemias (ALL or AML), children who are free of the disease after 5 years are very likely to have been cured, because it's very rare for these cancers to return after this long. Knowing the type and subtype of leukemia is important in estimating a child's outlook.
How many rounds of chemo is childhood leukemia?
Usually, there are three to four cycles of re-induction and consolidation or intensification chemotherapy. During these cycles, chemotherapy drugs are given for several days at a time, requiring that your child stay in the hospital during this treatment.
How long do leukemia patients stay in the hospital?
Patients will often need to stay in the hospital for 3 to 4 weeks during treatment. However, depending on the situation, many patients can leave the hospital.
Can you be fully cured of leukemia?
As with other types of cancer, there's currently no cure for leukemia. People with leukemia sometimes experience remission, a state after diagnosis and treatment in which the cancer is no longer detected in the body. However, the cancer may recur due to cells that remain in your body.
Is leukemia curable if caught early?
Leukemia is the cancer of the blood-forming tissues that includes bone marrow and lymphatic system. Adults and children are equally affected by Leukemia, which is seen as production of abnormal white blood cells by the bone marrow.
How successful is chemotherapy for leukemia?
The cure rates and survival outcomes for patients with ALL have improved over the past few decades. Today, nearly 90 percent of adults diagnosed with ALL achieve a complete remission, which means that leukemia cells can no longer be seen in the bone marrow with a microscope.
Can a child with leukemia live a normal life?
Childhood leukemia is often pointed to as childhood cancer research's success story. Just 60 years ago, almost no child with leukemia survived more than a few years, but today, thanks to new discoveries and advances in treatment, 90% of children with the most common type of leukemia will survive.
Can you live a normal life after leukemia?
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can rarely be cured. Still, most people live with the disease for many years. Some people with CLL can live for years without treatment, but over time, most will need to be treated.
What is the most treatable leukemia?
While it is similar in many ways to the other subtypes, APL is distinctive and has a specific treatment regime. Treatment outcomes for APL are very good, and it is considered the most curable type of leukemia, with cure rates as high as 90%.
Induction
- The goal of induction chemotherapy is to achieve a remission. This means that leukemia cells are no longer found in bone marrow samples, the normal marrow cells return, and the blood counts become normal. (A remission is not necessarily a cure.) More than 95% of children with ALL ent…
Consolidation
- The next, and usually more intense, consolidation phase of chemo starts once the leukemia is in remission and typically lasts for several months. This phase further reduces the number of leukemia cells still in the body. Several chemo drugs are combined to help prevent the remaining leukemia cells from developing resistance. Intrathecal chemo (as described above) is continue…
Treatment of Residual Disease
- The treatment plans may change if the leukemia doesn’t go into remission during induction or consolidation. The doctor will probably check the child’s bone marrow soon after treatment starts to see if the leukemia is going away. If not, treatment might need to be more intense or prolonged. If standard lab tests show the leukemia seems to have gone away, the doctor may use more sen…
Treatment of Recurrent All
- If the ALL recurs (comes back) during or after treatment, the child will most likely be treated again with chemotherapy. Much of the treatment strategy depends on how soon the leukemia returns after the first treatment. If the relapse occurs after a long time, the same drugs might still be effective, so the same or similar treatment may be used to try to get the leukemia into a second …
Philadelphia Chromosome-Type All
- For children with certain types of ALL, such as those with the Philadelphia chromosome, standard chemotherapy for ALL (as outlined above) might not be as effective. A stem cell transplantmay be advised if induction treatment puts the leukemia in remission and a suitable stem cell donor is available. Newer, targeted drugssuch as imatinib (Gleevec) and dasatinib (Sprycel) are designe…