Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia In Children

There are thousands of children diagnosed with malignancies each year, with leukemia being the most common (London et al., 2014). Leukemia is a cancer that affects the child’s body by increasing the number of atypical white blood cells (London et al., 2014). Leukemia is differentiated into different types based on the change that is has on the blood cells (London et al., 2014). These different types include acute myelogenous leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, with acute lymphoblastic leukemia being the type most commonly diagnosed in children (London et al., 2014). There are also chronic types of leukemia but they are very rare (London et al., 2014).
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia takes up a total of 25% of all the different types of cancer diagnosed in children (London et al., 2014). Acute lymphoblastic leukemia has different classifications according to Vardinam (as cited in Meenagan, Dowling, & Kelly, 2012), “Clinical classification of ALL now concentrates on the differentiation of T and B lymphocytes, and the World Health Organization (WHO) classification outlined two principal classifications of ALL: precursor B-lymphoblastic leukemia and …show more content…
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is not a hereditary disorder, but is instead acquired from the stem cells in bone marrow having genetic defects (Meenagan, Dowling, & Kelly, 2012). Although acute lymphoblastic leukemia is not hereditary, the genetic factors that increase the patient’s risks include being a Caucasian and of male gender (London et al., 2014). The other possible causes include a child that has been in contact with certain infectious agents (London et al., 2014). In children with certain abnormalities like Down syndrome, the overall number diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is greater (London et al., 2014). For this reason, it is thought that some types