What is childhood leukemia?

Leukemia is the most ‘common’ childhood cancer, accounting for 26% of the children diagnosed with cancer before the age of 20.    The two main types of childhood leukemia are acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which is about three-fourths of the leukemia’s diagnosed each year, and nearly 18% of children diagnosed this year will have a much rare of leukemia called acute myeloid leukemia (AML).   ALL is a malignancy of lymphoid cells, a type of white blood cell found primarily in blood, bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, liver and the thymus. AML is a malignancy of the granulocyte family of white blood cells, found mainly in blood and bone marrow. All types of leukemia’s are considered blood cancers.