Childhood cancer refers to the abnormal cell growth within the body of a child. Cancer begins in the cells, which are the building blocks of the body. Normally, the body forms new cells as it needs them, replacing old cells that die. Sometimes this process goes wrong. New cells grow even when the body does not need them, and old cells do not die when they should.
Shannon
suffers from a rare type of leukemia known as acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).
Early symptoms of the disease—fever, fatigue, paleness, bone and joint pain,
and infections—are easy to confuse with more run-of-the-mill illnesses like a
cold or the flu. That’s what Shannon’s mother thought.
“I
started noticing she was very tired and fatigued, and it wasn’t normal,”
Shannon’s mother, Odiney Brown, told ABC News. “The day we found out, we
immediately admitted our lives had just changed completely.”
AML can
quickly go from bad to worse. In order to recover, Shannon will need a bone
marrow transplant, and like so many others with the condition, she now
struggles to find a donor. Finding an exact match won’t be easy, either,
because Shannon is African American and Hispanic—two highly underrepresented
donor groups.
Even in
the event that a donor is found, it is likely that Shannon will need additional
treatment. “It is generally an aggressive disease that requires chemotherapy,”
Shannon’s doctor, Dr. Barbara Asselin of Golisano Children’s Hospital at the
University of Rochester Medical Center, told ABC News. “The first hurdle is to
see if we can achieve a remission in the bone marrow and don’t see any more
leukemia cells.”
Asselin
says the chances of recovery are less than other forms of childhood leukemia,
but that she remains optimistic about a cure. For now, Shannon is trying to
enjoy life as a normal 11-year-old girl, watching movies at home and chatting
online with friends between treatments.
Read more
from ABC, or find out how to become a donor through the National Marrow Donor
Program.
Researchers from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. report that inherited genetic differences may help determine how well children with a specific type of blood cancer will respond to treatment. A study in the January 28th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association links differences in more than 100 genetic markers with the response to chemotherapy treatment in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of childhood cancer. Photo: VashiDonsk, Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License
About | Privacy Policy | Business Solutions | Advertise | Contact | Add Healia to your site
©2012. Healia / Meredith Corporation
Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. All content on this Web site, including medical opinion and any other health-related information, is for informational purposes only and should not be used for a specific diagnosis or individual treatment plan for any situation. Use of this site and the information contained herein does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Always seek the direct advice of your doctor in connection with any questions or issues you may have regarding your own health or the health of others.