As pediatric cancer survivors, mother and daughter share unique bond

This story originally appeared on Insight, Dana-Farber’s blog. 
Jessica Tierney never thought she’d experience a harder moment than learning she had cancer at age 15 – until her 7-year-old daughter, Emma, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) last October.
Emma is undergoing treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber’s Jimmy Fund Clinic, just as Jessica did in 1991. “Emma already knew I had once been really sick, so I told her, ‘Look at me. I was treated a long time ago, and the medicine is even better now,” Jessica Tierney recalls of hearing her daughter’s diagnosis.
Jessica is a survivor of acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, a different leukemia than Emma has. Jessica was always told there was no danger of passing AML down to her two children, but there may be an ALL-AML link involved.
“Familial causes of leukemia are rare, and the occurrence of ALL and AML in a parent and child is particularly unusual,” says Kimberly Davies, MD, medical director of the Jimmy Fund Clinic and Emma Tierney’s oncologist. “We have not identified a genetic link between the two, but the coincidence of childhood leukemia in a mother and her child raises intriguing questions about possible overlapping causes of myeloid and lymphoid leukemias. Research into the genetic profile of different leukemias may bring us closer to identifying a link.”
As this search continues, so does Emma’s treatment. She is on a two-year ALL treatment plan, much lo...

Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - June 23, 2014 Category: Pediatrics Authors: Guest Blogger Tags: All posts Cancer Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center our patients' stories Source Type: news