Mar 17, 2022 · Chemotherapy is a treatment option for children with cancer. We explain how chemotherapy is given, the types, and what to expect if your child needs chemo.

Why might my child need chemotherapy? Your child may need chemotherapy to: Treat a certain type of cancer; Decrease the size of a tumor before surgery; Help other treatment work better. For example, radiation; Lessen pain, or other symptoms, and improve quality of life ; What are the risks of chemotherapy for a child?

Chemotherapy (say: kee-moe-THER-eh-pee) is the use of medicines to treat cancer. Cancer is a disease that causes normal cells in the body to grow out of control. If left untreated, these cells can grow throughout the body making the person very sick.

About 85% of children with cancer now live 5 years or more after a cancer diagnosis because of advances in pediatric cancer treatment. But these cancer treatments can cause other health problems later in life.

Chemotherapy treats cancer using medicines that work by interfering with cells as they divide. Learn more about chemo and how to prepare your child for it.

Kids in this age group tend to think in concrete terms, so try to explain your treatment plan using very simple words. The attention span of preschoolers is short, so keep conversations brief. For example, you might describe chemotherapy as a "good medicine" that will fight bad cells or "make mom's sickness go away."

Perhaps the most common options for pediatric cancer patients (infancy to age 18) is chemotherapy. Surgery and radiation therapy also play a key role in treating certain types of pediatric cancers.

Your child may have chemotherapy at a hospital (inpatient or outpatient), the oncologist's office, a cancer center or clinic, or home. Your child may have treatment every day, every week or every few weeks for a period of time.

Chemotherapy (often called "chemo") is treatment with medicines that kill or stop the growth of cancer cells. Standard chemotherapy drugs are different from a class of drugs called targeted therapy. Targeted therapy drugs can precisely target the cancer cells while causing less damage to normal cells and tissues. How Does Chemotherapy Work?

Feb 13, 2025 · The median age of participants was about 4 years old. All participants had standard-risk B-cell ALL and received standard chemotherapy-based induction and consolidation therapy.Based on how their cancer responded to that treatment—which included an assessment of remaining cancer cells in the bone marrow, known as minimal residual disease (MRD)—they were again categorized as being at ...