Now Childhood Leukemia Survival rate is 90%.

Leukemia is cancer of the white blood cells. It is the most common type of childhood cancer.

Your blood cells form in your bone marrow. White blood cells help your body fight infection. In leukemia, however, the bone marrow produces abnormal white blood cells. These cells crowd out the healthy blood cells, making it hard for blood to do its work. Leukemia can develop quickly or slowly. Acute leukemia is a fast growing type while chronic leukemia grows slowly. Children with leukemia usually have one of the acute types.

Risk factors for childhood leukemia include having a brother or sister with leukemia, having certain genetic disorders and having had radiation or chemotherapy. Treatment often cures childhood leukemia. Treatment options include chemotherapy, other drug therapy and radiation. In some cases bone marrow and blood stem cell transplantation might help

From 1990 to 2005, the cure rate for the most common form of childhood leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, has increased to 90%.  Given that the disease was essentially incurable just fifty years ago, this is a tremendous achievement.  The author of the article, Dr. Stephen Hunger, stressed that the work will not stop until the cure rate is 100%