Acute leukemia is the most common childhood cancer and accounts for 31% of all cancers in children. There are two main types of acute leukemia. The most common is ALL （acute lymphoblastic leukemia） affecting the lym...Acute leukemia is the most common childhood cancer and accounts for 31% of all cancers in children. There are two main types of acute leukemia. The most common is ALL （acute lymphoblastic leukemia） affecting the lymphoid lineage, and the more rare AML （acute myeloid leukemia） affecting the myeloid linage. The intention of this thesis is to follow the course of treatment from the admission to the hospital until the last check up and also see how a child will react to the treatment and side effects in later life. We studied literature and my own case records from the period when I was treated for ALL. From the literature and my case records, we can see that children tolerate treatment quite well. Due to rapid diagnostics and the possibility to give high doses chemotherapy, the overall prognosis appears to be very good. Today, acute leukemias of paediatric patients have a really favourable prognosis. The overall survival rate for ALL is higher than 80% and for AML 65%. So the results are good, but there is still a long way to go before we can be satisfied. To date we do not have a contingency program for children treated for acute leukemia after 18 years of age （neither in Norway or Slovakia） so perhaps this should be a focus point in the future. It could be extended to follow up patients in adulthood in order to monitor late effects that may occur in later life after many years of treatment.展开更多
文摘Acute leukemia is the most common childhood cancer and accounts for 31% of all cancers in children. There are two main types of acute leukemia. The most common is ALL （acute lymphoblastic leukemia） affecting the lymphoid lineage, and the more rare AML （acute myeloid leukemia） affecting the myeloid linage. The intention of this thesis is to follow the course of treatment from the admission to the hospital until the last check up and also see how a child will react to the treatment and side effects in later life. We studied literature and my own case records from the period when I was treated for ALL. From the literature and my case records, we can see that children tolerate treatment quite well. Due to rapid diagnostics and the possibility to give high doses chemotherapy, the overall prognosis appears to be very good. Today, acute leukemias of paediatric patients have a really favourable prognosis. The overall survival rate for ALL is higher than 80% and for AML 65%. So the results are good, but there is still a long way to go before we can be satisfied. To date we do not have a contingency program for children treated for acute leukemia after 18 years of age （neither in Norway or Slovakia） so perhaps this should be a focus point in the future. It could be extended to follow up patients in adulthood in order to monitor late effects that may occur in later life after many years of treatment.
