International Day of Childhood Cancer is celebrated annually on 15 February.
40 million, one in ten thousand, 1.5... these seemingly unrelated numbers, but behind the tragic stories of countless families.
Every year, the mainland adds 40,000 children with cancer in children under the age of 15, an average of 1.5 children with tumors in every 10,000 children.
Children, will also have cancer?
When many people hear the word childhood cancer, their first reaction is to think--- children, will get cancer?
In fact, cancer is a genetic disease, cancer is caused by genetic mutations, there are epigenetic changes, as long as it is an individual, there is a possibility of cancer.
Similarly, children are no exception.
However, for reasons such as the number of patients tending to be patients and the drive for economic benefits, childhood cancer is poorly understood compared to adult cancer.
What kind of cancer is leukemia?
Leukemia, also known as blood cancer, is a disease caused by malignant cloning after the malignant transformation of hematopoietic stem cells in the human body, and its incidence has accounted for 3% of all tumor diseases.
Leukemia is the most common childhood malignancy, and childhood leukemia is dominated by acute lymphoblastic leukemia, accounting for 3-4.
Patients with leukemia experience recurrent fever, bleeding, and symptoms such as anemia, bone and joint pain, and lymphadenopathy.
Is it really helpless after suffering from leukemia?
In film and television dramas, we often see clips of so-and-so suffering from leukemia and eventually dying.
But in fact, with the advancement of medical technology, leukemia is no longer a completely incurable disease.
If the patient belongs to acute promyelocytic leukemia, after early detection of the disease to the hospital for formal treatment, the patient has the opportunity to achieve clinical cure effect.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia can help patients improve survival through clinical induction and remission treatment, and to this day, the basic treatment for acute leukemia is still intravenous chemotherapy.
What are the clinical treatments for leukemia?
First, chemotherapy
Clinically, chemotherapy is the most commonly used to treat leukemia, through chemotherapy can kill or inhibit abnormal cells in the patient's body, so that the development of the disease becomes slower, but also can help patients alleviate the symptoms of physical discomfort.
In the process of chemotherapy, patients need to strengthen the body's maintenance, and some patients will have adverse reactions and need to enhance their physique to reduce the damage to the body.
Second, immunotherapy
After chemotherapy, if the treatment effect is not obvious, leukemia patients can consider immunotherapy, by taking out the T cells in the patient's body and genetically modifying them, so that the ability of T cells to recognize and kill tumor cells is enhanced.
At the same time, it helps patients improve their immunity and disease resistance, and plays a role in treating leukemia.
Third, drug treatment
After the diagnosis of the disease, leukemia patients take drugs under the guidance of doctors to help the body block abnormal proteins.
The abnormal proteins in the patient's body are beneficial to the reproduction of cancer cells, and cancer cells will accelerate growth after absorbing these abnormal proteins, and only by blocking these abnormal proteins can they inhibit the reproduction and spread of cancer cells.
Fourth, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Also known as bone marrow transplantation, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is to transplant the patient's own hematopoietic stem cells or other people into the patient's body to help the patient play a hematopoietic role.
Before the transplantation, it is necessary to completely remove the hematopoietic stem cells that have been diseased in the patient's bone marrow, and then transfuse healthy hematopoietic stem cells into the patient's body to help the patient suggest a normal hematopoietic system, so that the patient's immune function can play a role and the condition can be improved.
Because patients have individual differences, the types of leukemia are also diverse, patients need to follow the doctor's instructions to undergo various examinations, clarify the type and severity of leukemia, and then combine their own conditions to formulate a corresponding treatment plan.
Compared with the treatment alone, the efficacy of bone marrow transplantation has improved significantly, and more than half of the patients can be cured.
At present, medicine is also developing, acute promyelocytic leukemia has also been mature targeted therapy, coupled with small doses of chemotherapy, its cure rate can reach 90%.
Therefore, leukemia is not as terrible as we think, as long as we maintain confidence and actively cooperate, we will be able to welcome spring!