Pediatric Cancer Is A Scary Concept

‘“Cancer is like a home invasion, once it has invaded your life you will never feel safe again”’ (Adal yn's... 6). Cancer wipes out what a family knew before cancer; it wipes out their version of normal and replaces it with something that can not be controlled. When childhood cancer takes a hold of the family and never lets go. While going through cancer, it is important that a family sticks together and builds each other up through this difficult time. Childhood cancer affects everyone it comes in contact with, but it mainly affects the family, including the child suffering from cancer, as well as the parents or caregiver and siblings.

When it comes to cancer, so much of the world’s knowledge is based on statistics. For example, each day forty-six children, or more than two full classrooms of kids, are diagnosed with cancer and one out of every three hundred thirty people will develop cancer before the age of twenty. The simplest and most important of these statistics is this, “Cancer is the number one cause of death by disease in children.” Pediatric cancer takes the lives of more people than the number of children who die from asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and pediatric AIDS combined! About one thousand three hundred and eighty children are expected to die from cancer this year alone. Although the cure rate of children with cancer is steadily increasing for most childhood cancers over the past five years, the number of children who will die is overwhelming and unacceptable.

1. Most cancers incidence peak among children occurs during the first year of life. Some of the most well-known nationwide childhood cancers are leukemia, brain cancer, and other central nervous system cancers. The side effects of treatment, which range from heart disease to brain

As stated by curesearch.org this does not take into consideration the many children who succumb to their cancers after more than 5 years, nor does it account for those struggling with life-threatening effects of their cancer treatment, even including secondary

According to the American Cancer Society, there are sixteen major types of childhood cancers and over 100 subtypes. Leukemia and Lymphoma cancer are the most common cancers that children get at a young age. Everyday forty-six kids are diagnose with childhood cancer and seven children die every day. Childhood cancer kills more kids than Cystic Fibrosis, AIDS, and asthma combined! The worst part about childhood cancer is that the treatment side affects can last a lifetime for these kids. People do not understand that childhood cancer only gets a small percentage of the budget for all cancers. National Cancer Institute budget is around $4.9 billion and only 4% of that sum goes towards childhood cancer.

With this is a copy of my justification report on the subject of funding and support of research in pediatric cancer and assisting poor parents of children suffering from cancer. This statement is a review of my findings from the most recent year of working in X Cancer Specialty Center, and a separate research that other researchers have conducted outside the center. This paper will be useful in justifying the funding of extensive research in pediatric cancer, and the necessity to assist parents of the cancer patients to meet medical costs. I have completed this report at no cost to the organization, and I carried out and completed this research during off hours.

Every 3 minutes a child under the age of 15 is diagnosed with cancer worldwide. (150,000 p.a.) 1

Out of 100,000 children 32.1 cancer diagnoses occur in the age group 0-14, 138.6 occur in the 15-39 age group, and 2,053.8 occur in 40 and older (cancer.gov). Pediatric cancer, being so rare, makes research and development hard to fund because there are not many eligible participants for each specific trial. This creates a “Catch 22” by having a good societal support system, yet not having enough “return-on-investment” (Milne). Pediatric cancer is the leading cause of death in children after accidents, however the amount of deaths has lower drastically in recent years. The mortality rate as a whole has decreased by fifty percent in the last thirty years, however for patients with cancers other than lymphoma or leukemia the mortality rate has not declined since 1996 (Analysis of the National Cancer Institute’s Investment). Lymphoma and leukemia are the most common cancers that children are diagnosed with, but there are many more that can occur that need new research in order to discover ways to decrease the current mortality rate. In 1960 it was discovered that leukemia could be treated by “combination chemotherapy and dose intensity” this brought the curability up from 10% before this discovery to 80% by the 1990s (Norris and Adamson). Although this treatment has been successful for leukemia patients, the most common of childhood cancers, it is not as successful with other types of cancer. There are currently clinical trials that take place to begin trying to find treatments or cure for pediatric cancer, however because of lack of funding many of the trials do not continue or never really take off. Due to the lack of funding and efforts put forth into research for pediatric cancer more the 2,500 children die in America every year (thetruth365.org). Children diagnosed with cancer deserve more work to be put into finding a cure so they can go on to live long, happy

They have currently found a way to make treatments less toxic and harmful to the children but still making it effective to use. According to a study completed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology it showed that the amount of childhood deaths due to cancer was down 6.4% from 1970 to 1994. This study had tested approximately 34,000 patients that had survived their original cancers and had lived a total of five years after treatment had ended. The study also looked at these patients to see how heavily the cancer weighed on their lives. This being the treatments that they had previously received during their childhood and how they had been effected for the time after the cancer was gone. The patients in this study were shown not to have died because of their cancer coming back, heart or lung problems, or even developing another cancer because of the treatments that had received while treating their cancers

The Arizona Cancer Foundation for Children is a non profit organization that supports children with cancer. The founder, Chrisie Funari, lost her daughter, Ava, to cancer. at only 18 months, Ava was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. For 3.5 years, Chrisie and her family traveled across the country searching for the best care for her daughter. Ava had gone through many toxic treatments than most adult cancer patients. Due to all the aggressive treatments, her teeth slowly disintegrated, she lost her hair, and her kidneys failed. at the age of five, Ava lost her life to cancer. After the death of her daughter, Chrisie did not lose hope. Till this very day, Chrisie assists in funding research programs that will help children and help families

As established in the National Cancer Institute, “Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide for children and adolescents in America, accounting for more than 91,250 children that lose their lives to this disease” (National Cancer Institute). Cancer is not considered a terminal illness, but more of a chronic illness because of the intense treatment that the individual has to endure. As a result of this treatment the chances of survival for children suffering from pediatric cancer has increased around 80 percent. The increment in the survival rate has made it possible for many parents to not have to go through the acceptance that they are about to lose their child to a terminal illness, but have coping strategies that will make them adapt to the fear of the reoccurrence of that illness. This illness has a great impact on the patient as well as the family because not only do they have to adapt to this illness physically, but also mentally. Research has shown that there are both short term and long term effects that come into effect when the child is both in treatment and also years after the treatment. The type of cancers that these adolescents have to endure range from leukemia, brain tumors and other cancerous tumors that have appeared in recent medical studies. These tumors can either be benignant, an acute case that is non-cancerous or malignant, a cancerous case that will need intense treatment over an extended period of time.While many would say there is more of a

The minute I saw families supporting a friend or family member who had or is battling neurofibromatosis(NF), I had this warm-sentiment needing to do the most to give my full support in any given way to the families. The Children's Tumor Foundation is a non-profit organization that devotes to finding effective treatments for the millions of people worldwide overall living with neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic disorder that causes tumors to develop on nerves all throughout the body. The foundation organized a carnival that joined a wide range of foods, raffle tickets,T-shirts sale, celebrity karaoke and so on this happens each year at the CBS studio. I had a pleasure to meet one of only a handful few individuals

Coping with Pediatric Cancer: Strategies Employed by Children and Their Parents to Manage Cancer-Related Stressors During Treatment has each pediatric participant and caregiver answer three questions. “The first question stating, what was hard for you/your child when you found out about the diagnosis? Second, what was hard for you/ your child during the cancer treatment? Lastly, what things do you do to cope/how do you help your child cope during the cancer and or cancer treatment? (Hildenbrand et al., 2011).” Each question is followed up

Cancer, a long and difficult journey assimilated with death. Cancer, in general, is when cells begin to grow out of control and can start anywhere in the body. There are many different forms and types of cancer; scary but true. All forms of cancer is terrifying, but the most terrifying for children is Leukemia. Leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children and teens. It zones in on blood-forming cells, mainly white blood cells, in the bone marrow. This form of cancer accounts for almost one out of three cancers (Leukemia in Children). Why, in my opinion, this is the most intimidating form of cancer is because it takes the lives of the young who had so much potential and barely began to live their own lives. It takes those who are

Raising awareness is a step in the right direction to escalating advocacy and support for childhood cancer research (acco.org 1). One nationwide project that brings in the most financial aid for visitors and patients is St. Jude’s Children's Research Hospital (StJude.org 1). The mission of St. Jude is "to advance cures and the means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment" (StJude.org 1). That being said, the support "helps ensure that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital will continue its lifesaving mission of finding cures and saving children” (StJudes.org 1). Few people realize the dire situation patients and families are in when they are deciding to not