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Leukemia is an intractable disease that many people talk about, and it is one of the most common malignancies of the blood system.
Some reports on news networks, as well as the promotion of idol film and television dramas, have made this disease an incurable disease in the eyes of many people.
In fact, if it can be detected and treated early, the cure rate of leukemia in mainland China has been as high as 80%. But the difficulty is in the word "early".
This is because some types of leukemia, such as chronic myeloid leukemia known as CML, usually manifest themselves in the best treated chronic phase when the symptoms are very subtle.
Even 20%-40% of patients have no symptoms at all, and if it is not for some abnormalities found in the physical examination, everyone may not go to the doctor until the emergency crisis period, which delays the optimal treatment time.
In addition, it is very dangerous that leukemia is very high in children, the peak age of incidence is 0-9 years old, children at this age are uncomfortable and difficult to perceive and describe on their own, it all depends on the attention of parents, if one does not pay attention, it will miss the opportunity for treatment.
Therefore, parents must understand what we are going to talk about today, and if these signs appear in the child, do not ignore them, and go to the hospital for examination and exclusion as soon as possible.
1. The tragedy caused by blind belief in "common sense".
In 2017, Hunan's Sanxiang Metropolis Daily once reported such a story, a child who is only more than a year old has a very big belly, in fact, this problem is not new, when the child is full moon, many people think that her belly seems to be much larger than that of children of the same age.
But this symptom did not attract the attention of parents, in their common sense it is likely to be a problem such as flatulence, after all, the child does not have other abnormalities on the body, the same can eat and play.
It wasn't until more than a year later that the child's belly was getting bigger and bigger, but it was not just a little bigger than his peers, but swollen up like a ball, and the parents hurriedly took it to the Provincial Children's Hospital for examination.
The results of the examination shocked the family, and the large belly turned out to be caused by a malignant spindle cell tumor.
Doctors immediately operated on the child, and the lump cut from her spleen alone weighed 1 kilogram.
But even so, the best treatment opportunity was missed, the treatment results were not ideal, and eventually the child who was less than two years old left this world.
The family regretted it very much, and at the same time, they were very puzzled, if they had taken the child to the hospital for a check-up, maybe they would have avoided this result, but the question was that the tumor was not a disease that only adults could suffer, and why did stomach distension become the cause of death?
In fact, it is not only this one manifestation, but the symptoms caused by this cunning disease are very diverse.
There is a girl in Hainan who always feels joint pain at first, and her family thinks it is a normal phenomenon in the bone growth period, and then she goes to the hospital when she can't walk normally, and the diagnosis is also leukemia.
In the face of painful lessons, we found that childhood leukemia is not as far away as we imagined.
Second, the incidence of childhood leukemia is not optimistic
According to the current surveillance data, the existence of cancer is not a small number that can be ignored in this special group of children, and the incidence of leukemia ranks first all year round.
The medical journal The Lancet once conducted a test on this phenomenon, which lasted three years, starting in 2018 and ending at the end of 2020.
They put a staggering 120,000 on the number of children diagnosed with cancer over the three-year period, a significant indication of how long we have underestimated the risk of cancer in children.
Among them, leukemia accounts for the majority, and the age of onset is also very young, and the group that has long occupied a high incidence rate is actually 1-4 years old children.
The data provides a very wide range of people, covering the 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions that exist on the mainland. What is even more striking than this number is that after comparing the results with the previous monitoring results, it is concluded that the number is still rising.
And according to the results, the diagnosis rate in economically developed areas is higher than that in economically underdeveloped areas, which is most likely not due to specific environment or other factors, but the current distribution of diagnosis and treatment services.
The average number of cancer-specific clinics in less developed regions is significantly lower than in developed regions, which means that it is likely that this number is not the whole number, and there are many children with leukemia who are not detected in time.
In the absence of a more targeted diagnosis, the onset of the disease is often in a blast crisis phase, when the original 80% cure rate will be replaced by a high mortality rate.
The level of medical care and access to medical services in the mainland continue to rise, and many diseases that previously seemed terrible can be well controlled and cured, but leukemia has replaced them as a major cause of death in children.
3. Parents must pay attention to these 5 symptoms
1. The child's body often has unexplained fever.
Fever is one of the representative symptoms of acute leukemia in the early stage, but it has also been at the top of the list for many years in terms of easy neglect, mainly because the causes of fever are very complex, and normal body inflammation will cause this result.
Therefore, many parents first think of colds, tonsil inflammation or other inflammation when their children have a fever, and rarely think about leukemia.
In fact, white blood cells themselves are an important component of the immune system and an important part of the blood, and abnormalities in this part are often accompanied by a decrease in immunity, so that inflammation such as pneumonia and enteritis is particularly prone to occur, and fever has become a common thing.
It is important to note that this fever does not respond well after antibiotic treatment, and the child may experience burnout.
Therefore, if the child often has a fever that is not easy to cure, and the person is also "wilting", it is best to take it to the hospital for a systematic physical examination to see if there are any suspicious items worth paying attention to in the blood routine examination.
2. Unexplained paleness.
A lot of pallor is due to anemia, which is an important early symptom of childhood leukemia.
Sometimes parents will find that their children's faces are not very good recently, and they are not as ruddy and cute as before, so they should also pay attention at this time.
If at the same time as the pale face, the very lively child suddenly begins to become quiet, and does not like to run and play with the children, panting when moving, and shouting that he is tired, then the parents should assist in observing the color of the child's nail bed and conjunctiva, if there are abnormalities, then you need to go to the hospital for a special examination to rule out.
3. Joint pain is not necessarily growing pain
In the case of a sick girl in Hainan, we will find that frequent joint pain is also dangerous, which is very confusing, because the child is in the period of rapid physical growth, and problems such as growing taller can indeed cause growing pain in the joints.
However, if this problem persists, and there is no obvious change after adjuvant treatment such as calcium supplementation, sometimes the child is even painful and reluctant to walk, don't just think that your child is squeamish, and you need to check in time to rule out the risk of leukemia.
4. Bleeding of unknown cause should be paid special attention.
This point will be correspondingly popularized in many film and television dramas, and leukemia is usually labeled as nosebleeds, injuries that can't stop bleeding, and so on.
This is indeed one of the consequences of leukemia, but in fact, in life this manifestation will be more extensive and complex.
For example, if a child touches a bruise that does not disappear for a few days, it is likely to be subcutaneous bleeding, and bleeding gums, and even excessive and irregular menstruation in some girls, may hide the risk of leukemia.
5. Unexplained lymphadenopathy
Lymph, like white blood cells, is an important part of the immune system and is easily affected by the cause of leukemia.
Your child often has swelling in various parts of the body and trunk, which may indicate that the lymph nodes are affected by the disease.
Such swelling may be accompanied by pain, or it may be painless, but the visual appearance is abnormal, but no matter which one it is, it may be one of the precursors of leukemia, and we should pay enough attention to it and check it out.
Fourth, in addition to a few early symptoms, these causative causes cannot be ignored
Why has the incidence of childhood leukemia shown an upward trend in recent years? Experts have summed up the following reasons.
The first is the genetic factor, which shows that the genes in a certain part of the human body are sensitive to environmental factors and other factors than ordinary people, and this part of the people is prone to corresponding lesions.
If there is an immediate family member with this type of disease, the risk of the child will increase exponentially compared to the rest of the family.
This also reminds parents that if there is a similar situation at home, then it is even more important to be vigilant and have regular medical check-ups.
The second very important point is the environmental factor, in our daily living environment, there are some chemical pollution is difficult to avoid, which is an important cause of many diseases in daily life.
For example, formaldehyde, benzene, etc., which will be exposed to home decoration, as well as some unqualified children's clothes and toys, etc., are also likely to release these toxic substances, and long-term exposure will also cause the onset of leukemia.
This reminds parents to carry out relevant professional treatment and testing when moving to a new house, and to move in after sufficient vacant ventilation time.
When buying children's products, you should also be more cautious, and try to choose trustworthy brands with clear testing standards to avoid inadvertently harming children.
It is also very important that smoking or second-hand smoke will increase the risk of leukemia, which reminds many young novice parents that they must pay attention to quitting smoking and try to understand the dangers of secondhand smoke during the preparation for pregnancy.
Finally, I would like to remind parents that the manifestations of leukemia are very complex, and sometimes more professional instruments and means are often needed to achieve the purpose of diagnosis, and the early detection is an important factor in whether it can be cured.
Therefore, not only the elderly and adults, but also the regular physical examination of children is also a very important thing.