According to the National Cancer Institute, pediatric leukemia is one of the most common cancers that strike children. Between 1990 and 1995, it constitutes 31 percent of all cancers occurring in kids younger that 15 and 25 percent of all cancers in persons younger than 20. Approximately 3,250 children are diagnosed with leukemia every year. The overall prognosis of these kids has improved remarkably since 1970. As of 2010, the survival rate for the most common type of pediatric cancer--acute lymphcytic leukemia--is approximately 80 percent.
Anemia
Kids with leukemia are often severely fatigued. Their skin is often pale, and they easily become breathless. This can be attributed to anemia. The bone marrow of these kids becomes so packed with the immature white blood cells called blast cells that it is no longer capable of making red blood cells. Unlike other types of anemia than can be treated with diet or erythropoetin, anemia caused by leukemia is treated with fresh infusions of red blood cells.
Persistent Infections
According to the Ped-Onc Resource Center, many parents speak of colds or other evidence of infection that just doesn't go away. Often this is caused by the lack of functional white blood cells in leukemia patients. While leukemia patients have an excess of white blood cells, these cells are immature and incapable of finding infection. Consequently, kids often get sick.
Stomach Ache
Larger numbers of blast cells cells often cluster around the kidneys, spleen, liver, intestines and other internal organs. The number of cells can be so overwhelming that they cause stomach aches.
Achy limbs
Kids with leukemia can also complain of having achy limbs or painful bones. This occurs when the bone marrow is packed with blast cells. In most instances, treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs provides relief.
