Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Research Paper

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) is rare cancer in children but it is also the most common type of cancer diagnosed in children. ALL is diagnosed in 20-30% of children with cancer under the age of 15 years old (Hart, Juliet 10/2014). Treatment usually consists of a combination of chemotherapy and radiation or sometimes it consists of chemotherapy alone. Usually, treatment last two to three years and there is a relapse rate of 20% one year after treatment. Treatment may cause long-term learning problems that may show later in life and require long-term treatment. A diagnosis of cancer causes many physical and mental problems to the caregiver, most of the time is the parents. Parents tend to show many levels of anxiety,
All occurs in the bone marrow and blood, which spread through the body and is not focus on just one part of the body. The system used to classify ALL is The French-American-British (FAB) classification. In the 1970s a group of experts from France, America, and British divided ALL into 3 subtypes (L1, L2, and L3) this was based on the way that the leukemia cell looked under a microscope. Now with modern medicine, this test is being done at the lab and gives a more accurate classification (American Cancer Society, 2016). More test is being done to determine the subtype of ALL. Tests that are being done are a cytogenetic test, flow cytometry and another lab test to group ALL into immunophenotypes of leukemia. These test check for the type of lymphocyte either B cell or T cell of the leukemia cell and how mature they are. With the new testing and new grouping, they have replaced the FAB classification and are now B-cell ALL and T-cell ALL.
B-cell ALL first classification is: early pre-B ALL, this is found in about 10% of cases. Common cell ALL is found in about 50% of cases. Pre-B cell ALL is found in 10% of cases. Mature B-cell ALL also known as Burkitt Leukemia is found in about 4% of
Since a lot of the symptoms and signs are also common with other problems, parents need to go to the healthcare provider is something does not seem normal. It is also harder to diagnose the stage of cancer because it is in the blood and bone marrow not just in one specific part of the body. Treatment can be done and the patient can be cured but it is not guaranteed that cancer will not come back or that the treatment will be successful. Parents and caregiver take the hardest role, besides the patients because they are unsure if treatment will work and often time they are not sure how the treatment works and what does it do. The caregiver needs to be given support for dealing with treatment and also preparing them for the case of treatment not working and making it terminal cancer. With the modern diagnostic testing, treatments and help that is available survivor rate is higher but might still leave secondary effects and caregiver also will need help in dealing with the secondary effects and a possibility of relapse of