CARE OF AT-RISK / HIGH-RISK / SICK PRE-SCHOOLER
CARE OF AT-RISK / HIGH-RISK / SICK PRE-SCHOOLER
I. LEUKEMIA
A hematological malignancy or a cancer of the blood, which develops in the bone marrow.
Childhood Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer.
Types
Types
Acute Leukemia typically develops and worsens quickly (over periods of days to weeks). The vast majority of childhood leukemia is acute.
Chronic Leukemia develops over a slower period of time (months), but is more difficult to treat than acute leukemia, and is more common in adults than in children.
The following are some of the main types of leukemia that occur in children:
One. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, A L L
The most common form childhood leukemia, which makes up seventy-five to eighty percent of childhood leukemia diagnoses.
Accounts for most of the remaining cases of leukemia in children, comprising about twenty percent of childhood leukemia. A cancer of the blood in which too many myeloblasts (immature White Blood Cells) are produced in the bone marrow. The marrow continues to produce abnormal cells that crowd the other blood cells and do not work properly to fight infection.
A form of leukemia that affects the lymphocytes, a type of White Blood Cells which fights infection. When a patient has A L L, the bone marrow makes too many immature White Blood Cells and they do not mature correctly. These White Blood Cells also do not work correctly to fight infection. The White Blood Cells over-produce, crowding the other blood cells in the bone marrow.