Hearing that your child has leukemia is traumatizing. You may feel overwhelmed with the information you are learning. It is important to remember that no one is to blame for the disease.
Leukemia is the general term for blood cancer. There are four types of leukemia in children:
- acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
- acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
- chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)
- juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JML)
Chronic leukemias often progress slowly. In contrast, acute leukemias usually develop more quickly, if left untreated.
Knowing that modern medicine has greatly improved treatment and survival for children with leukemia will give you the hope and help you need to get through this difficult time. For example, improvements in leukemia treatment in the past 30 years have increased the survival rate for a child diagnosed with AML from 35% to 50%. For most forms of ALL, the probability of long term survival is about 85%.
This resource centre will focus on the two most common forms of childhood leukemias: ALL and AML.