Childhood Cancer A Parent's Guide to Solid Tumor Cancers

Each year more than 6,000 children and teens in the United States are diagnosed with a solid tumor (e.g., kidney tumor, liver tumor, neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, or sarcoma). The illnesses and their treatments can have devastating effects on family, friends, schoolmates, and the larger community. This newly updated edition contains essential information families need during this difficult time. It includes descriptions of the newest treatments, such as computer-assisted surgery, tandem stem cell transplants, and targeted therapies as well as practical advice about how to cope with diagnosis, medical procedures, hospitalization, school, and finances. Woven throughout the text are true stories–practical, poignant, moving, funny–from more than 100 children with cancer, their siblings, and their parents. 

Anne Spurgeon, trained as a historian at the University of Wisconsin, is the parent of a long-term survivor of rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft tissue sarcoma. For more than 15 years, she served as the executive director of the Badger Childhood Cancer Network in Madison, Wisconsin. Nancy Keene is the mother of a long-term survivor of childhood cancer and one of the founders of the nonprofit publisher, Childhood Cancer Guides. A well-known writer and advocate for children with cancer, she has written fourteen consumer health books on topics ranging from childhood cancer to working with your doctor. She was the first chair of the Patient Advocacy Committees of both the Children’s Cancer Group and the Children’s Oncology Group.