There’s a reason why it’s called the Big C
Childhood is a phase of innocence, curiosity, development and growth. Children are unaware and blissful and that state is rarely seen in adults. At a recent CME, I heard something that struck me as the most apt definition of “adults”. This senior paediatrician stated, “The word adult is derived from the fact that an adult is an ‘adult-erated’ child.” There couldn’t be any better way of defining adults and adulthood.
Now since adults are adulterated children by derivation, adulthood is adulterated childhood. And therefore the diseases in children and adults are primarily of different natures and so are their causes. When placing diseases into broad diagnostic categories, there might be some common diagnosis seen in both the phases of life but their sub-classification and types as well as presentations will be very different.
Cancers occur in both children and adults. Cancers are the dreaded group of diseases that occur due to an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in the body with the potential of spreading to other organs in the body.
Paediatric cancer: stats at a glimpse
Cause of cancer in children is much different from adults. The majority of causes and risk factors of Cancers in adults are lifestyle related. However, in children this aspect does not apply very well. Lifestyle changes compound over the years to cause genetic mutations and ultimately cause cancers. Lifestyle factors take many years to pose a cancer risk and hence, in children, the time at hand is not usually enough for lifestyle factors to cause cancer. It is found that in children a majority of cancer causes are either genetic or environmental.
Changes in the DNA inside the cells lead to development of cancer cells. There are certain genes that promote and suppress the growth and division of cells.
Genes that help cells grow, divide, or stay alive are called oncogenes.
Genes that slow down cell division or cause cells to die at the right time are called tumour suppressor genes.
Cancers can be caused by DNA changes that either turn on oncogenes or turn off the tumour suppressor genes.
SEPTEMBER IS CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH. With a small series of blogs I wish to create as much awareness about childhood cancers as possible because they are spoken about little and hence, known about very little.
Lack of awareness is the second most common obstacle in curing paediatric cancer
Let’s spread awareness by talking, sharing and asking.
Comments