Male1: You hear this too all the time, what is leukemia? Is that a very bad cancer or is not a so-bad kind?
Male2: Well, leukemia is a form of cancer of the so-called white cells. The white cells are blood elements that are involved in a number of functions and mostly to defend us from infections and they can become cancerous. They can become a form of cancer. Because they are blood cells, they are all over so leukemia transfers into some of the tumors that is typically, but not always, it is present all over the body. The moment, in which there are two leukemic cells, they go all over because they travel with the blood. There are two types of leukemia; one is called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The other one is called acute microcytic leukemia and it is essentially identified with type of cell that is involved. The most common fortunately is the acute lymphoblastic leukemia—that is s disease that prior to 1948 could not be cured. In 1948, finally some drugs came out that showed that you can actually start doing something about it and over the work of many pioneers and many people in pediatric hematology, now we know that this disease can be cured in roughly 85% of all patients who have it in the first--
Male1: We hear that girls have a better chance than boys?
Male2: Boys traditionally have been considered a little bit more at risk and indeed, still today, they get treated longer with this disease than girls, so that there is actually a difference in the year of the treatment.
Male1: Is there any age group where you see this that you have a better chance of beating it?
Male2: The typical age group that is considered the best risk is between age two years and ten years. You have some group of patients who are high risk, for instance, the infants, the patients who are below one year of age and generally the older you are with this disease, the more you are at risk, the more it is complicated. The issue of it is—it is a complex one but for a few extreme groups, the vast majority of kids who have this disease, we actually know that they will have a good outcome; the difference is the treatment. The treatment may be more intensive, less intensive, different drugs that allow to actually cure this disease.
Male1: And they actually sort of tighten it a little bit?
Male2: Yes, actually, for a very long time, the two most important risk group if you want or parameters that guide us in deciding what treatment to do for this disease was age and the white count, the number of blood cells present when the patient was diagnosed. Now, over the work of the last 20 years, there is a lot more information so that both the type of cell that is specifically involved and there is a number of them, some of the genetics of the cell itself, the response to treatment, the early response to treatment, I worked in factoring and deciding whether or not a patient will do well with the standard treatment or will require additional treatment. It is a complex area and it is an area that actually will become even more complex as we study more and more any information that comes out of the laboratories that is brought to the bedside, but the important thing for people to know is the fact that all of these advances will lead lives to a tremendous hope for patients.
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