Description

This video by TV360 offers you expert advice on coping with leukemia in children.

Transcript

Leukemia is the most common cancer that occurs in children and AML is by further most common type of leukemia that occurs in kids. Leukemia by definition is a cancer that rises from and affects the bone marrow, which is the part of our body that makes our blood cells. So what occurs in leukemia is the abnormal cancer cells basically replace the entire bone marrow and make the body incapable in making its normal blood cells. Basic treatment for AML is very intensive period of treatment over the first three or four weeks and that’s called induction. And that’s three or four different chemotherapy drugs given all at ones to try to induce a remission. The next phase of treatment is what's called consolidation where you take that remission and you consolidate it. And the goal there is to get rid of any residual leukemia cells that are beyond the limits of our detection but that we know we’re there. And then finally the most—the longest period of treatment is called maintenance and that’s a relatively low intensity part of treatment where patients largely take chemotherapy by mouth it last for about two years. Many patients can go back to school during that period. And the main goal of that name and its phase is to really just take off any of those last remaining leukemia cells that have been able to survive, putting all that together the cure rates for AML have been raising steadily over the years and we are successful in the vast majority of cases of treating these patients. Jay’s case is actually pretty typical. Where the initial approach was intensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy to try to prevent relapse but we didn’t pull the trigger of a bone marrow transplant which is the most intensive therapy that we know how to give for leukemia initially. It's really because the risk of dying from that treatment is higher than the risk of relapse for patients going into it and it's really only that subset of patients who relapse, who—where it's really justified to do a bone marrow transplant. In case like Jay’s where their in the mists of pretty regular schooling. One of the big decisions that have been made is whether to keep going to school or to go through some sort of home schooling or home tutoring. Basically at the beginning of treatment it's we generally recommend to stay out of a regular classroom situation. There's quite a bit of exposure that can happen and patient’s immune systems are quite weak. As you saw in Jay’s video there was a lot of concern about activities outside of the school as well. And for many of my patients that’s been a really important concern of theirs things like athletics or other pursuits outside of school and I’ll tell you that my opinion on it is that we should try to make kids lives as normal as possible within the framework of what we’re trying to do from the treatment prospective. So I am as encouraging as possible for kids to continue doing activities outside of the school to the extent that they fell like they're able too.