Curability of Childhood Cancer
- Donald Pinkel, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
THE DIAGNOSIS of cancer in children has been accompanied by a fatalistic outlook in the past. The child with cancer and his family have been a favorite subject of the thanatologists, who equate it with a "terminal" status. However, advances in the evaluation and care of childhood cancer, resulting from basic and clinical cancer research, have led to increasing periods of disease-free survival and probable cure for greater proportions of the children.
Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is the most frequent form of childhood cancer. Ten years ago it was considered almost uniformly fatal, despite the temporary remissions induced by antileukemia drugs. In 1962, a treatment program was initiated in which "late" ALL was quickly converted to "early" ALL by inducing remission with prednisone and vincristine sulfate. Then, multiple antimetabolites were administered for two to three years to eliminate this "early" disease. When the major form of initial
Footnotes
-
Reprint requests to Department of Pediatrics, Milwaukee Children's Hospital, 1700 W Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53233 (Dr Pinkel).
-
Coordinated by William H. Crosby, MD; Emil Freireich, MD; and Peter V. Sacks, MD.
