Currently, there are about 7.4 people with aplastic anemia per 1 million people in China. The incidence rate is higher in the elderly and children, especially in school-aged children between 5 and 10 years old. Aplastic anemia is one of the common types of anemia in children and is not an independent disease. Childhood aplastic anemia is a benign and curable blood disorder. With timely and standardized treatment, the cure rate can reach 60%-70%, or even 90%. Moreover, children have a higher cure rate and better control. Therefore, childhood aplastic anemia is not as dangerous as rumored, nor is it a terminal illness as described by some. As long as it is detected and treated in a timely manner, it can have a good curative effect and a favorable prognosis for children. Now, let's take a look at how childhood aplastic anemia is caused and what its symptoms and treatment are!
What causes childhood aplastic anemia?
1. Congenital childhood aplastic anemia
Most congenital aplastic anemia patients (about 75%) have a clear cause. Common causes include Fanconi anemia, congenital keratosis, Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, and non-familial thrombocytopenic purpura. These syndromes may be accompanied by physical deformities, but not all cases show a decrease in blood cells in the early stage of the disease, and the time of diagnosis is not necessarily in childhood.
2. Acquired childhood aplastic anemia
Acquired childhood aplastic anemia accounts for about 60%-70% of childhood aplastic anemia, and a portion of it is idiopathic aplastic anemia (65%), which refers to the unknown cause of aplastic anemia and can be classified as follows:
1. Physical factors: various forms of radioactive or ionizing radiation;
2. Chemical factors: including benzene, pesticides, industrial adhesives, paints, and other chemicals.
3. Drugs: the relationship between drugs and aplastic anemia is a closely watched issue.
4. Biological factors: can be caused by viral, bacterial, protozoan infections, etc., viral infections are particularly common.
5. Environmental factors: this may be related to residents with low socioeconomic status living in impoverished areas, exposed to toxic environments (such as industrial pollution), and prone to viral or other microbial infections.
6. Other factors: various types of untreated anemia, in addition, aplastic anemia can be secondary to thymoma, systemic lupus erythematosus, Turner syndrome, etc., and inhibitory antibodies against hematopoietic stem cells can be found in the patient's serum.
What are the symptoms of childhood aplastic anemia?
1. Anemia: the child's hemoglobin and red blood cells decrease, sometimes severely, with pale complexion and nail color.
2. Bleeding: due to the decreased platelet count, the blood clotting function is reduced, so bleeding can occur in the skin, gums, nasal cavity, digestive tract, etc.
3. Infection: due to the decreased white blood cell count, white blood cells are the body's defenders, wherever there are bacteria, they go there to destroy them. When the white blood cell count is low, the body's resistance is reduced, making the patient more susceptible to infections such as pneumonia and sepsis, with symptoms such as fever, cough, and difficulty breathing.
How is childhood aplastic anemia treated?
1. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: Immunosuppressive therapy is the preferred treatment for about 75% of severe and very severe aplastic anemia patients without matched sibling donors, as well as for moderate aplastic anemia patients who depend on blood transfusions.
2. Immunosuppressive therapy: Bone marrow transplantation treatment has the advantages of low relapse rate and less late clonal diseases, but the shortage of bone marrow sources has deterred many patients, until the birth of "haploidentical" technology. Traditional bone marrow transplantation requires a complete match of HLA antigens between the donor and recipient, which has a matching rate of about one in one hundred thousand in the general population; whereas haploidentical bone marrow transplantation only requires half of the HLA to be matched, which is 100% matched between blood relatives of two generations."
These two methods are recommended as standard treatment for severe childhood aplastic anemia. It is reported that the cost of treating childhood aplastic anemia is around 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.
After reading the above content about childhood aplastic anemia, do you have a certain understanding of it? Early detection, timely diagnosis, and active treatment make childhood aplastic anemia less scary.
