When making up your mind about treatment for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, you must know every detail about the treatment you opt for. It would be best to ask questions about anything about cancer that you don’t understand.
Don’t forget to ask the healthcare team questions during and after the treatment.
Questions to ask after diagnosis about Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
- What type of leukemia has been diagnosed?
- Can you explain my child’s pathology report?
- Where is the location of cancer exactly?
- What is the stage of pre-cancer or my child’s cancer?
- May I know the tumor’s molecular subtype? What does this mean?
- May I know the results of the bone marrow aspiration and what this means?
- What are the results of the cytogenetic studies done? What does this mean?
Questions to ask about treatment options
- What are my child’s treatment options?
- Which treatment option do you recommend?
- What is the goal of treatment? Is it to eliminate cancer, to increase the survival and quality of life, or both?
- What are the success rates with the planned treatments?
- What are the side effects of treatment, both short-term, and long-term?
- Can we change our minds after we start the treatment?
- What will be the effects of the treatment on my daily life?
- Can my child work, exercise, and perform his daily activities?
- What about the cost of the treatment?
Questions about Radiotherapy or Chemotherapy
- What kind of therapy do you suggest and why?
- How long will it take for a treatment?
- What side are effects expected during and after the treatment?
- What are the long term effects of the treatment?
- How can you prevent or reduce these effects?
Questions to ask about surgery of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
- What type of surgery will my child have?
- How many procedures of this type has the surgeon done?
- How long will the operation last?
- Is the surgery safe?
- How long does my child need to stay in the hospital?
- What are the short-term and long-term effects of the surgery?
Taking part in a clinical trial
- Is there any clinical trial available currently my child can take part in?
- How does being a part of the trial change my treatment option?
- What is the aim and background of this trial?
Choosing not to have treatment
- Can we opt not to have any treatment?
- What are the possibilities if we decide not to take any medicine?
- Would the aim and result be the same if my child took the treatment later?
Question about after treatment
- What happens after treatment finishes?
- How long will it take to live a routine life?
Questions about cancer recurrence
- How will we know that cancer has come back?
- What can be the symptoms and signs for a cancer recurrence?
- How can we reduce the risk of cancer coming back?
- What is an approach to stay healthy after treatment?
Questions about follow-up care Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
- What are the follow-up tests?
- How regularly do my child need to visit the oncologist?
- Who will have my child’s treatment summary, and how can my child take them and a survivorship care plan to keep in my records?
- Which survivorship support services are available to my child? To my family?
