Each year, approximately 4,500 children in America are diagnosed with leukemia, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. A potentially deadly cancer of the blood, it is the most common cancer in children.

Despite great strides in treating childhood leukemia, a form of the disease called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) poses special challenges because of the high risk of leukemic cells invading the brain and spinal cord of children who relapse.

Men who survived childhood leukemia treatment into adulthood were more likely to have low bone mineral density than other adults their age, putting them at risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, according to a new study.

The first analysis of the genetic determinants of resistance to the anti-cancer drug methotrexate in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) could offer a pathway to predicting such resistance and treatments to overcome it, according to a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital study.

In a new study published in PLoS Medicine, William Evans of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, and colleagues provide new insight into resistance to the widely-used cancer drug methotrexate (MTX) in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), the most common cancer in children.

Survival rates of childhood cancers, especially leukemia, have improved greatly in the past three decades, but survivors of this disease still seem to face many health and lifestyle challenges as young adults.

The dramatic increase that has occurred in the cure rate for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) will be difficult to replicate in older patients without considerable additional research, according to an article by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital authors that appears in the March 22 issue of the Lancet.

Gleevec, the targeted cancer pill that has saved more than 100,000 lives, now is saving more children with a dire leukemia, as well as preventing disease progression with long term use in adults with chronic myeloid leukemia.

All blood cell production in adults depends on the steady work of a vital gene that if lost results in early bone marrow failure, Dartmouth Medical School cancer geneticists have found. Their research reveals an unexpected role for the gene in sustaining the adult blood-forming system, and opens novel strategies for targeting the gene, which is often involved in a type of childhood leukemia.

St. Jude researchers discover that variations in genes that affect the behavior of leukemia chemotherapy drugs in the body are linked to drug toxicity, a finding that will likely help clinicians predict how patients will respond to specific agents

Tungsten began increasing in trees in Fallon, Nev. several years before the town's rise in childhood leukemia cases, according to a new research report.