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Treatment

Treatment usually begins soon after cancer is diagnosed. The common types of treatment used to treat childhood cancers are:

chemotherapy
radiotherapy
surgery
bone marrow transplant or peripheral blood stem cell transplant (often used for leukaemia and lymphoma).

A child or young person might have one kind of treatment or a combination of treatments (combination therapy). Most children receive a combination of treatments.

What is a treatment protocol?

The healthcare team looking after a child or young person will draw up a treatment protocol. This is a plan or ‘road map’ of the way the cancer will be treated, and it will be individual to each patient, depending on the type of cancer.


	It can be useful to know what the treatment protocol is so that you can prepare for any medical events that may affect your pupil’s attendance at school.

Treatment protocols help everyone – the young person, medical staff, parents, carers, teacher – to keep track of all of the treatments and when they are due to take place. An example of a treatment protocol could be ‘Surgery, followed by two cycles of chemotherapy, then two weeks of radiotherapy.’

It can be useful to know what the treatment protocol is so that you can prepare for any medical events that may affect your pupil’s attendance at school. Parents or healthcare professionals will be able to help you to understand the treatment protocol.

Side effects

Treatments for cancer often cause unwanted and unpleasant side effects such as feeling sick or very tired, irritated skin, diarrhoea and hair loss. These side effects arise because the cancer treatment that kills cancer cells also damages normal cells.

Everyone responds to treatment differently so it is important to remember that not every young person will experience every side effect. Most side effects go away soon after treatment ends. However, there are potential long term effects of treatment depending on the type of cancer or treatment. Parents or healthcare professionals should be asked if there is anything you need to be aware of.

For more information, please see CancerBacup or Cancer Research UK’s site, CancerHelp.