Emergency Presentations of Cancer in Childhood

Childhood cancer is an important area for pediatricians and emergency physicians to have an up-to-date knowledge based on both diagnostic and therapeutic issues. Clinical cases of some common childhood cancers will be presented as the basis for the review of how these potentially lethal disorders can present. Patient assessment and initial workup and pertinent components of the differential diagnosis will be discussed. With a growing number of children successfully treated for cancer, long-term care-related issues are also reviewed. Childhood leukemia, neuroblastoma and Wilms tumor will be reviewed in more depth. The goal of this paper is to guide the reader in these relatively uncommon, although extremely important, clinical presentations of cancer in children.