Types Of Cancer For Children
Cancer is a medical condition that refers to abnormal cell production up the formation of malignant tumors; although the condition usually affects older people, there are some types of cancer for children that affect them even at the age of 5 or younger.
The most common types of cancer for children are leukemia, brain and nervous system tumors, lymphoma, bone cancers, and neuroblastoma. On the top of the list of all those aforementioned types of cancer for children in leukemia, a type of cancer that accounts for one out of three childhood cancers. Among other symptoms, leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood, that causes pain in the bones and joints, fatigue, weakness, and weight loss, as well as fever and even bleeding. Hormonal medication is a rather light treatment that might be enough to deal with the cancer. In more serious cases, however, a patient would require chemotherapy or bone marrow transplant, or a combination of the two.
Brain and nervous system tumors are the second most common among the various types of cancers for children, since they are responsible for the 27% of childhood cancers. Different types of brain tumors can occur at different parts of the brain, and the various treatments will vary accordingly; there are cases where surgical removal of the tumor might be the best treatment; in some cases, chemotherapy might be the only viable solution; while in others, a patient might just need certain medication that will simply shrink the tumor.
Another type of childhood cancer is lymphoma, a kind of cancer that occurs in the lymph nodes and affects the immune systems white blood cells called lymphocytes. Although lymphoma can also affects the bone marrow, it usually affects lymph nodes like the tonsils and the thymus.
Moving on to bone cancers, they can be broken down to two different types of cancer for children: metastatic bone cancers and primary bone cancers. The former refers to cancers that first grow on other body parts and then metastasize to the bones, while the latter refers to cancers that originate directly at the bone. Primary bone cancers can be further divided into two more types of cancer for children: osteocarcenoma and ewing sarcoma. The first occurs in areas where there is rapid bone development as it is the case with the end of the long bones in the arms and the legs; while the second, which is less common, in most cases develops in the middle of the long leg bones, the pelvis, and the chest. Bone cancer is one of those types of cancer for children that affects teenagers.
In complete opposition to bone cancers, however, neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that affects the nerve cells while the organism is still in an embryonic stage, and rarely (if ever) does it develop in children over the age of 10. Although the original tumor can grow anywhere, in most cases the tumors starts developing in the abdominal area causing a noticable swelling.
Other types of cancer for children include but are not limited to Wilms tumors, rhabdomyosarcoma, retinoblastoma, etc.
