Recognize Factors Causing Leukemia in Children

 Ilustrasi

Leukemia or often called blood cancer is one type of terrible disease and is included in one type of deadly disease, like heart disease and diabetes.


Leukemia is caused by an unnatural growth or transformation of white blood cells (leukocytes) and causes uncontrolled growth of white blood cells. Excessive production of white blood cells is certainly causing abnormalities in the body.

Leukemia can affect anyone, not least children. Even in Indonesia alone leukemia rate in children is high, with 60% of them have entered an advanced stage. One reason is the lack of parental knowledge resulting in inaction in children handling.

Therefore it is important for every family, especially mothers to prevent this terrible disease from attacking your child. How to? To prevent it, the first thing to do is to know what is the real cause of leukemia.

Causes of Leukemia

The cause of leukemia is not known for certain, but it is known several factors that can affect the frequency of leukemia, such as:

1. Radiation can increase the frequency of acute myeloblastic leukemia (LMA) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (LLK). There were no reports of the relationship between radiation and LLK. Some reports support: Radiologists more often suffer from leukemia, patients with radiotherapy are more likely to suffer leukemia and leukemia found in survivors due to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
2. Leukemogenic factors contain several chemicals that have been identified to affect leukemia frequencies: environmental toxins such as benzene, industrial chemicals such as insecticides, chemotherapy drugs.
3. Down syndrome patients have an acute leukemia incidence 20 times greater than normal people.
4. Viruses can cause leukemia such as retroviruses, feline leukemia virus, HTLV-1 in adults.

Classification Of Leukemia

• Acute lymphocytic leukemia (LLA) is the most common type of leukemia in children. The disease is also present in adults who are primarily 65 years of age or older.
• Acute myelocytic leukemia (LMA) is more common in adults than in children. This type was formerly called acute non-lymphocytic leukemia.
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (LLK) is often suffered by adults over 55 years of age. Sometimes also suffered by young adults, and almost none in children.
• Chronic myelocytic leukemia (LMK) is common in adults. Can also occur in children, but very little.

The type that is often inflicted on an adult is LMA and LLK, whereas LLA often occur in children.

Symptoms Of Leukemia

1. Anemia

Anemia occurs because the body lacks blood cells. Children of leukemia commonly experience anemia with features pale face, no power or weakness, easy fatigue and shortness of breath

2. Fever prolonged and susceptible to infection

Because white blood cells are abnormal, the germs that enter so can not be resisted white blood cells. White blood cells that should be in charge of protecting do not work. As a result, children become vulnerable to infection and frequent fever.

Fever and infection are early signs of leukemia. It is not easy to distinguish with other fevers such as flu. But the fever in leukemia is usually more than 38 degrees Celsius which lasts several days and often happens.

3. Swollen glands

Swollen lymph nodes are one of the earliest symptoms often observed in childhood leukemia. Swollen glands can be seen in the chest, groin and neck armpits. Lymph nodes can swell due to the accumulation of abnormal white blood cells. The difference with swollen glands in other pain is in children leukemia last for several days different from swelling due to illness of flu.

4. Bone pain

Bone pain is not due to injury or bruising. Bone pain in children with leukemia usually worsens over time as the bone marrow accumulates abnormal white blood cells.

5. Easy bleeding and bruising

The leukemia children are easily bleeding and bruising which is a sign of low blood clotting rates. Platelets are fragments of cells or cells that help blood to freeze produced by the bone marrow. Low levels of platelets in the body can result in delays in blood clotting so that leukemia children bleed easily for frequent periods.

6. Nosebleeds

Other symptoms are nosebleeds, gum hemorrhage, difficulty breathing, loss of appetite, low weight, headache, liver and spleen enlarged, excessive night sweats and the appearance of small red spots on the skin, known as petechiae. To ensure the child suffering from leukemia should be done by physical examination, complete blood blood test, CT scan, MRI, bone marrow biopsy, peripheral blood smear, and cytogenic analysis and spinal tap.

Handling Leukemia

1. Leukemia treatment includes curative and supportive. Supportive treatment involves treatment of other diseases that accompany leukemia, complications and actions that support healing, including psychological treatment. Supportive care include blood transfusions / platelets, antibiotics on infections or sepsis, anti-fungal drugs, providing good nutrition and psychosocial aspects approach.
2. The cytostatics used at each stage of leukemia treatment is a combination of various sitostatics. Treatment with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) is useful for treating granulocyte decline as a cytistatic side effect, but does not reduce hospital length.
3. The problems faced in the treatment of leukemia patients are expensive drugs, the availability of drugs that are not necessarily langkap, and the side effects, as well as long treatment. Drugs for leukemia are expensive for most patients especially in this time of crisis, in addition to many drugs, as well as the length of treatment adds to the burden of costs for the procurement of drugs.

Side effects of cytostatics such as anemia, bleeding, hair loss, granulocytopenia (facilitate the occurrence of infection), nausea or vomiting, stomatitis, myocarditis and so on.

Patients with granulocytopenia should be treated in isolation space. To overcome the boredom due to the long maintenance needs to be provided playroom and psychological services.

Patients who have remission and finished treatment conditions will recover as a healthy child. The problem during treatment is the occurrence of relap (relapse). Relapse is a bad sign for his illness.

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