Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is a blood cancer and a cancer of the bone marrow.
1.2: What’s going on in normal bone marrow? (2)
In the bone marrow, blood stem cells are formed. These cells are immature cells and overtime, they develop and become mature blood cells. They may become either myeloid stem cells or a lymphoid stem cells.
When myeloid stem cells develop, they become one of these cells: Red blood cells (carrying oxygen), Platelets (blood clotting), or Granulocytes (fighting infection and disease). On the other hand, when lymphoid stem cells are developed, they become T lymphocytes (help B lymphocytes), B lymphocytes (produce antibodies) and Natural killer cells (kills foreign bodies).
Image Source: http://www.cancer.gov/images/cdr/live/CDR526538-750.jpg
1.3: What is happening in a children’s bone marrow with Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia? (1)
In children’s bone marrow with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, more of their blood stem cells develop into immature lymphoblasts, B lymphocytes, or T lymphocytes. As a consequence of having many of these leukemia cells, white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets do not have space to flow in the blood stream. Cancer cells or leukemia cells do not fight infection or disease as the normal lymphocytes cells do. As a result, blood infection, anemia and bleeding occur.
Image Source: http://www.cancer.gov/images/cdr/live/CDR755927-750.jpg
1.4: What are the factors that lead to Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia? (1)
These are possible factors that cause pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia such as being exposed to x-rays or radiation before birth, genetic mutation in the chromosome. Also having genetic condition such as down syndrome, bloom syndrome, shwachman syndrome, Ataxia-telangiectasia or Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) may lead to pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Another possible factor could be from a result of past treatment with chemotherapy. (1)
1.5: What are the signs and symptoms of a child with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia? (2) (3)
These are the possible signs and symptoms that appear to a child with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia which are fever, bruising and bleeding easily, dark spot under the skin, loss of appetite and weakness. The child looks pale and is always tired. The child also suffers from bone or joint pain. Lumps appear in the neck, underarm, groin or stomach of the child. These lumps are not painful. (2)
1.6: What are the factors that affect of the chance of the recovery and the treatment? (1)
The prognosis depends on several factors such as age, gender, race, the number count of the white blood cells in the blood, the type of lymphocytes where the leukemia cells begin to grow from. Mutation in the chromosomes or the genes of the lymphocytes has a great affect on the prognosis. The rapid growth of the leukemia cells should decrease after the initial treatment also affects the rate of the recovery. (1)
The treatment options also depend on the factors that affect the prognosis. The age of the child at the diagnosis plays a role on the treatment options. The decrease in the leukemia cells count after the initial treatment and the type of lymphocytes that the leukemia cells begins to divide and grow affect how the treatment options will be designed. (1)
After reading this chapter, to test your general knowledge about Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, click on "QUIZ" or use the URL.
Work Cited:
(1) Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Treatment (National Cancer Institute) http://www.cancer.gov/types/leukemia/patient/child-all-treatment-pdq
(2) Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Learn the Symptoms (MedicineNet) http://www.medicinenet.com/childhood_acute_lymphoblastic_leukemia/article.htm
(3) Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (: Practice Essentials, Background, Pathophysiology)
Great job with this post, it was very informative and very well organized and easy to follow along. By putting in helpful terms in parentheses around the terms that were confusing it was very helpful. The visuals were also clear and concise and they helped to further support the information you provided in the text. Overall great job with the post i feel as though i have a much better understanding of this disease.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this post was well-crafted and quite informative. I especially liked the link to the quiz at the end of the post, I thought that was a nice way of testing and reaffirming the knowledge gleaned from this post. I can't wait to learn more.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I think that it was well organized and informative. I also like the quiz section, this helped in testing weather I got the information provided in the post or not. The one thing that I had in mind while reading the post is that how is Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia differ from regular lymphoblastic leukemia in adults?
ReplyDeleteThe introduction to this blog was very well executed and informative to me the reader. It gave me a good description and look into the background of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia and the factors of how it affects children. One thing I very much enjoyed was how you included a quiz at the end for people to test their knowledge of the disease. You mentioned that treatment options differ for individuals with this type of leukemia, but what are the most basic or common forms of treatment utilized?
ReplyDeleteAgain, excellent introduction and I look forward to what you have to say regarding this topic throughout the semester.