16/02/2020
Childhood and Adolescent Cancers.
Cancer in children is a rare entity, representing only approximately 1% of all new cancer case incidence in a year. Malignant cancers are one of the leading causes (no-infective) of death among children aged 1 to 19 years. Childhood cancers differ markedly from adult cancers in incidence and prognosis. Blood cancers account for 40% of childhood cancers followed by brain tumors (30%). Genetic susceptibility and specific environmental exposure play major role in cancer incidence.
The symptoms differ with each type of cancer and are generally nonspecific. Nonetheless, following hints might help us to suspect cancer. Prolonged fever, recent weight loss, night sweats, painless swellings ( esp lymph nodes), early morning headache with vomiting, abdominal mass, unexplained pains (esp bone pains).
Because most general pediatricians rarely encounter kids with cancer they might miss the early symptoms. Whenever a child has unusual course of common child illness, one might consider malignancy.
Children with cancer should undergo treatment in dedicated cancer centres. They require appropriate multidisciplinary and usually multimodal therapy and requires assiduous evaluation for chance of recurrence. The best chance for cure of cancer is during initial course of illness. Once the child is diagnosed with cancer and staging is done, parent and doctor should discuss various modalities of treatment available and do what best can be done. Even in advanced stages children should undergo palliative therapies so as to relive them from the troublesome symptoms, especially pain, which is common in 50% of cases.
There are only a few recognized environmental causes of childhood cancer that can be avoided or counteracted. One such example is immunization, HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccination prevents cervical cancer, and Hepatitis B vaccination decreases the risk of liver cancer. Teach your child healthy lifestyle practices, such as avoiding to***co, alcohol, high-fat diets, and obesity. The earlier you instill these habits in your child, the greater the lifelong benefit and the more likely it is to be present and sustain during childhood.