Back to home Sept. 2012
Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida
Treatments Offer Pediatric Cancer Patients Hope for Future
The word "cancer" is life-altering for anyone
who receives the diagnosis, but can be especially
devastating for children, who may not understand
what is happening to them.
Common childhood cancers include leukemia and brain tumors. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) makes up about one-third of all childhood cancer.
"We primarily see acute leukemias, like ALL or acute myeloid leukemia (AML), in childhood," says pediatric hematologist/oncologist, Susan Alisanski, M.D. "However, children also can be diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia and different types of brain tumors."
Lymphomas, solid tumors and bone cancer are the other types of cancer that strike during childhood. Dr. Alisanski also treats patients who have Wilms renal tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkins and Hodgkins lymphomas, and patients with rarer tumors like rhabdomyosarcoma, and bone tumors including, Ewing's sarcoma and osteosarcoma.
Treatment ranges from surgery to chemotherapy, depending on the type and severity of the cancer. "Depending on the type of cancer, other therapies may include radiation therapy, and newer targeted, directed therapies specific to the cancer type and potential genetic mutation in the cancer cells alone," Dr. Alisanski says.
Current treatments offer long-term solutions for many types of cancer, Dr. Alisanski says. Pediatric oncology patients are offered current active clinical research treatments through Children's Oncology Group (COG) trials.
"We have advanced the overall survival rates for all childhood cancers to about 85 percent through advancement of knowledge through COG trials," Dr. Alisanski says. "Some of our ALL patients who are standard risk also can be found to have favorable prognostic risk factors in their leukemia cells at the time of diagnosis and have as great as 95 percent overall survival with current chemotherapy plans of care."
Other types of cancer, including many tumors and Hodgkin's lymphoma have a 90 percent survival rate. In the 1950s, the overall survival rate for all types of childhood cancers was 20 to 30 percent. "We have made tremendous progress, but, of course, can only hope to continue to improve and even approach 100 percent complete remission for every child with cancer," Dr. Alisanski says.
Along with understanding research on what causes childhood cancer, Dr. Alisanski says that finding a cure is part of her goal for all of her patients. "We meet every patient and family at the time of diagnosis, offer them the best known standard treatment of care for the child's disease, and any potential new active ongoing clinical trials that may potentially improve the prognosis for their child's disease," she says.
"We all hope for only the very best for every child and the families that we meet. We recognize that we are likely meeting these children and their families at times of the worse stress in their lives, and we only hope to walk the journey with them, offering the best care possible. We all have hope—especially with all of the tremendous progress in pediatric oncology in previous decades—that pediatric oncology continues to advance."
Dr. Alisanski says that medical advancements have made her job rewarding because she can help patients overcome their illness. "There is no greater thrill to me than to walk the journey through cancer treatment with a patient and his or her family and see our long-term survivors return to the office for a social visit, sharing all of their life successes and happiness."
“There is no greater thrill to me than to walk the journey through cancer treatment with a patient and his or her family and see our long-term survivors return to the office for a social visit, sharing all of their life successes and happiness,” says Dr. Alisanski.
Treating Leukemia in Children
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Susan Alisanski, M.D.
Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida
9981 S. HealthPark Drive, Suite 156
Fort Myers, FL 33908
239-343-5333
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