Do we know what causes childhood
leukemia?
The exact cause of most childhood leukemias is not known. Most children with leukemia
do not have any known risk factors.
Still, scientists have learned how certain changes in the DNA inside normal bone marrow
cells can cause them to become leukemia cells. Normal human cells grow and function
based mainly on the information in each cell’s DNA. The DNA inside our cells makes up
our genes, which are the instructions for how our cells function. We usually look like our
parents because they are the source of our DNA. But our genes affect more than how we
look.