Cancer remains one of the most common causes of death in children and adolescents.
Improvements in treatment have resulted in five-year survival rates of 65 percent in childhood cancer patients. These diseases present nonspecifically with fatigue, pallor, irritability, bone pain, anorexia or low-grade fever. Children with leukemia or lymphoma are more susceptible to infection and may present with recurrent respiratory infections as well as the more classic presentations of lymphadenopathy, bruising or central nervous system signs. Blood tests will show pancytopenia and blast cells, but bone marrow aspiration biopsy is necessary for diagnosis. Tumors of the central nervous system account for approximately 20 percent of childhood cancers, with medulloblastoma being the most common type.