Q: What does leukemia mean?
A: Leukemia is a blood cancer. More specifically, it is a cancer of the bone marrow in which the blood cells are grown and developed. Some of these blood cells, white blood cells, grow in a very rapid speed and become immature cells that then disrupt the functions of mature blood cells.
Q: What causes Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia?
A: The causes of leukemia are still unknown. However, there are possible factors that lead to leukemia which are the genetic mutation in patients' chromosome, pregnant mothers' exposure to radiations, past treatment with chemotherapy, and having genetic mutation such as Down syndrome could be a possible cause of leukemia.
Q: What are the available treatments for Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia?
A: There are four standard treatments for Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia which are chemotherapy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy with stem cell transplant, and targeted cancer therapy.
Q: What is targeted cancer therapy?
A: Targeted cancer therapy is a therapy in which drugs or other substances are used to interfere with molecular targets that cause the growth of cancer cells by blocking them.
Q: What are the limitations to targeted cancer therapy?
A: Targeted cancer therapy is still in clinical trails and it has limitations. One of which is that molecular target's structure can be resistant to the drugs. Secondly, mutation in the molecular target could occur. When mutation happens, cancer cells find new and different pathway to grow even more rapid than before. Lastly, some molecular targets are complexed structure, thus developing a drug is hard and complicated.
Q: What is immunotherapy?
A: Immunotherapy is a newly developed therapy in which drugs or components are introduced to patients' body to stimulate some parts of their immune system to fight back cancer.
Q: What does it mean that the treatment is in a clinical trial?
A: When treatment is in a clinical trail, it means that researchers are still developing the drugs and clinical outcome is yet unknown. Researchers are also still studying the causes of the disease and try to link and evaluate these causes with the safety of the developed drugs they provide.
References:
(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) Clinical Trials: What You Need to Know (What You Need to Know about Clinical Trials)
(4) Targeted Cancer Therapies (National Cancer Institute)
http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/targeted-therapies/targeted-therapies-fact-sheet
(5) What is cancer immunotherapy? (What is cancer immunotherapy?)
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Hi Ghofran,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good blog pos.
However, I wish you have explained what is the difference between Lymphoblastic Leukemia and regular Leukemia, are they the same? and if not what is the difference between them?
Thank you for stopping by. Leukemia is a general term for any type of blood or bone marrow cancer, and the type of the cell that is affected determines the cancer or disease name. For example, lymphocytes in the bone marrow are the affected cells; therefore, the cancer is named acute pediatric lymphoblastic leukemia.
DeleteNice job Ghofran, you answered a lot of questions that people might ask about this type of leukemia and helped to create a better understanding of the disease. The only question i still have is whether or not these treatments are safe and as Fatimah had asked in her comment, how is this form of leukemia different from other forms?
ReplyDeleteThank you Bobby,
DeleteThe traditional or classical treatments such as radiation therapy or chemotherapy kill all the cells in the body including the healthy cells, that's why patients who receive these treatments lose their hair.
As for targeted therapy, there isn't any danger elements or results as far as I have read on this topic so far because it is relatively new. It is how patients' system respond to the drugs. Will their body cell get or be resistant to the drugs is the concern about this therapy.
In chapter 5 of this blog, the article I was discussing about immunotherapy claims that the therapy is relatively safe because the researchers introduce drugs to patients' body to stimulate their immune system to fight back cancer cells.
Finally, for your last question, I have already answered Fatima. "Leukemia is a general term for any type of blood or bone marrow cancer, and the type of the cell that is affected determines the cancer or disease name. For example, lymphocytes in the bone marrow are the affected cells; therefore, the cancer is named acute pediatric lymphoblastic leukemia."
I hope these answers help you better understanding of Leukemia.
I thought that you presented a lot of good information that helps the reader or audience gain a better understanding of what Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is. A complaint I have of this post, other than what has already been mentioned by previous posts, would be "How does Immunotherapy relate to PALL? Is it a possible, unexplored avenue of treatment? Or already in use but less effective than the other types of treatment?"
ReplyDeleteHi Stephen,
DeleteI already mentioned in chapter 5 of this blog that immunotherapy has a successful cure rate on a patient with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Below is what I have mentioned.
"In the article "T-Cell Immunotherapy Cure for Cancer" on MIT Technology Review, it is discovered that T cell immunotherapy has a successful cure rate on a patient who has reemission of acute lymphoblastic leukemia."
Article Source:
A T-Cell Immunotherapy Cure for Cancer | MIT Technology Review (MIT Technology Review)
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/538441/biotechs-coming-cancer-cure/