02/25/2013
Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the body's white blood cells (WBCs).
Normally, WBCs help fight infection and protect the body against disease. But in leukemia, WBCs turn cancerous and multiply when they shouldn't, resulting in too many abnormal WBCs, which then interfere with the body's ability to function normally.
Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare childhood cancer that usually occurs in children younger than 2 years old. In JMML, too many myelocytes and monocytes (two types of WBCs) are produced from immature blood stem cells called blasts. These myelocytes, monocytes, and blasts overwhelm the normal cells in the bone marrow and other organs, causing the symptoms of JMML