Childhood leukemia is no longer a death sentence
When I was a resident, way back in the late 1960s, every child diagnosed with leukemia died. Doctors, including me, would break into tears when telling parents their kid had this dreaded disease.
Thanks to the work of pediatric cancer researchers, today almost all, 98-99% of kids treated for ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia), experience remission within 6 weeks. And more than 90% are disease free for ten years and are considered cured. Leukemia is no longer a death sentence. Almost 4,000 children are diagnosed each year with ALL and 3,600 of them are cured. Thank you modern medicine for all the lives you have saved.
There is so much I could say about this great advance, but I’ll spare you the drama because so much has happened with other pediatric cancers. Let me tell you about another cure.
One summer afternoon a mother brought her three year old daughter, Sue, to see me with a “Bad cold.” Mom said she was not eating well the past few weeks but, she and her husband thought it was because of their cross country move. She also mentioned that Sue had a cough and looked “peaked.”
On my exam Sue was breathing way too fast and looked sicker that a “cold sufferer”. She had a runny nose, her ears drums were not red, her chest was clear, and her heart sounded great. Why was she breathing so fast I wondered? Compelled by my habit and the pediatric adage, “Examine all bellies under the age of 5, at every visit”, I felt her abdomen.
There I found the problem. She had a large mass filling the right half of her abdomen.
I asked her mom to take her next door for a chest x-ray and bring the films back to me. Then I called the radiology tech and asked her to include the abdomen as well as the chest in the films and send the pictures back with Mom.
They were soon back in the exam room. My nurse had the films on the view box when I came out of another room. I was horrified! Sue’s lungs were filled with hundreds of tumors, and her right kidney occupied most of her abdomen. My eyes leaked as I asked my nurse how could I possible tell this woman that her daughter was filled with cancer?
While I waited for the strength I called the oncologist at Milwaukee Children’s Hospital. He told me it sounded like Wilms tumor and I should send her down. He also added that there were new treatments for Wilms and she had a good chance for survival.
Nurse Karen accompanied me as I talked to this devastated mother and showed her the x-rays. After we all caught our breaths, I asked if I could call her husband. Karen was able to get him on the phone. A few minutes later Baby and Mom were on their way to meet Dad for the 40 mile trip to the hospital.
Her parents called their previous doctor who told them to take her home and celebrate Christmas in August, because there was no way she would live till then. Fortunately, the oncologist and I were able to show them some recent studies about cure rates for Wilms.
Sue had a horrible year; surgery, x-ray treatment, and chemo shrank her frail body to skin and bones. But, she was cured!
The last time I saw Sue, she was a college senior who sprained her ankle playing soccer. I talked to her parents five years ago. Sue is now, more than 40 years after treatment, married and living in Texas.
Every year in these United States about 500 kid are diagnosed with kidney cancer called Wilms tumor. Today, more than 90% of kids with Wilms are cured.
Thanks to pediatric research, pediatric cancers, one by one, are succumbing to treatment. Thank a scientist whey you see one and thank all those you know who contribute to cancer research.