What's Cancer?

Cancer is a general term for an abnormal, malignant growth which affects different parts of the body. The most common childhood cancer is leukaemia, or cancer of the blood. Other types of cancers include lymphomas and various types of tumours. Cancer is not hereditary. It is not contagious. It affects people of all ages, races, religious and ethnic backgrounds. There is nothing that you or your child could have done to prevent this illness, and it is nobody's "fault" that your child is sick.

The Haematology team knows that you are anxious to find out about what type of cancer your child has; the doctors will determine this by doing a series of tests at the beginning of your child's treatment.

The presence of leukaemia can sometimes be detected by finding these abnormal cells circulating in the bloodstream, through a simple blood test (complete blood count, or "cbc"). Other cancers may produce abnormalities either in the blood count (usually by invasion of the bone marrow, where blood cells are produced) or in other chemical values that can be determined by blood tests. However, these tests are rarely specific. Other tests are usually necessary to determine the exact type of tumour.

The most common procedures are lumbar puncture, bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, and tissue biopsy. Lumbar puncture helps to determine if cancer is present in spinal fluid; bone marrow aspiration and biopsy help determine the type of leukaemia; tissue biopsy helps identify the type of tumour. Other tests include ultrasound, X-rays, computed tomography scans, bone and gallium scans, lymphangiograms, and other scans. These tests will be described in greater detail in the next section.

The treatment team hopes to minimize your fears and anxieties so that you can appreciate how important these tests are, and understand that they are done to help your child, not to hurt him or her.