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What You Need to Know about Childhood Cancer

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ChildhoodCancer

The sad truth is, children all over the world are diagnosed with cancer everyday. It might be easier to ignore such a painful issue, but it’s a real one and a leading cause of death in children. We’ve consulted Dr. Mohamed Najib, a paediatrician at Hospital Kuala Lumpur to share his expertise and to raise childhood cancer awareness in conjunction with International Childhood Cancer Day.

What is cancer?

“Cancers are abnormal cells which divide without control and can invade other organs or tissue. For example, abnormal growth of leukemic blast cells (blood cancer cells) will give rise to leukaemia, while abnormal growth of cancer cells in the liver will give rise to liver cancer,” explains Dr. Najib.

What types of cancer do children get and how common is it?

“Children are susceptible to any form of cancer, however, the most common form of cancer in children is leukaemia (Blood cancer) followed by brain tumours,” says Dr. Najib. “Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s oncology unit is the biggest in the country and we see around 180-200 new childhood cancer cases a year.”

It is important to note that cancer affects children differently and are often found in different areas of the body than adult cancers.

What are the symptoms?

Some cancers are detected at an early stage while the average age of diagnosis is 10 years old. Dr. Najib points out that symptoms of cancer varies according to its type. A child with leukaemia may present with easy bruising, a distended abdomen and may progressively become pale. While a child with brain tumour may present with persistent headache and early morning vomiting, blurring of vision or even seizures.

Ultimately, using your parental instincts remains Dr. Najib’s top recommendation. “My advice for parents is if they notice anything out of the ordinary in their child, they should seek medical attention.”

What treatments are available and how successful are they?

“(Depending on the type of cancer) available modalities are surgery for tumours, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. General side effects of chemotherapy would include nausea, vomiting, loss of hair, fatigue and also an increased risk to infection. All the benefits and possible side effects/ long term complications will be explained by the Paediatric Oncologist to the parents/patient prior to starting treatment,” answers Dr. Najib.

Treatment has come a long way over the past five decades. As recently as the 1960s, the survival rate was below 30% and most types of childhood cancer were virtually incurable. Today, it is a completely different story: The latest treatments give children diagnosed with cancer more than a 70% chance of beating the disease. “Cure rates for leukaemia is around 80-90% in the standard risk group,” adds Dr. Najib.

Misconceptions and advocacy

Childhood cancers are often the result of changes in the cells’ DNA (which happen very early in life or before the child is even born), and are not strongly linked to lifestyle or environmental risk factors (unlike many adult cancers). Dr Najib urges, “We need to correct the misconception that cancer equals death. There are new treatments that gives childhood cancer a good cure rate. However, we still need more research to be carried out on targeted therapies which would reduce side effects and eradicate cancer cells more effectively.”

On a personal level, Dr Najib also hopes to see more parent driven support groups in the future to support other parents with children suffering from cancer.

Support groups:

Treatment centres offering paediatric oncology:

Government hospitals

Private hospitals

Dr. Mohamed Najib is a paediatrician currently undergoing fellowship training in Paediatric Haematology, Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplant in Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

Text Credit: Marie Lim

Illustration by Lyn Ong