Recently, Suzhou Children's Hospital admitted a pair of twin brothers under three years old. They both suffered from leukemia one after another. My brother diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia in March last year, so the whole family went to Suzhou to see a doctor. When my younger brother was about to finish chemotherapy and was discharged from the hospital after half a month, he was unexpectedly found to have the same disease. The whole family is at a loss. It is often said that twins can communicate with each other, so why do twins get the same disease easily?
I thought it would be dawn, but I fell into the dark valley again.
My brother also got leukemia after bone marrow transplantation.
Zhu, born in 1984, is a rural carpenter in Jiangxi. In June 2009, his family added a pair of twin sons. The whole family was extremely happy, but it didn't last long. Just when the two children were forty days old, the eldest son Zhu caught a bad cold. He went to see a doctor, who heard a murmur in his heart with a stethoscope, and later found out that his eldest son had congenital heart disease. I just had an operation last August.
Last March, Zhu Zirui, Zhu's youngest son, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Later, after my brother's bone marrow transplantation, I saw that my younger son could complete chemotherapy and be discharged smoothly. However, on March 30th this year, the eldest son Zhu was also diagnosed as acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
The whole family is very happy because the youngest son will recover soon. However, the eldest son also suffered from the same disease, which made the family feel sad again.
Zhu, who was born in the 1980s, told reporters sadly: "After the younger son was diagnosed with leukemia, the eldest son also had a bone marrow transplant. At that time, all the inspection indexes were normal and there were no signs of illness. Later, because he and his wife had to take care of their youngest son in Suzhou, they left their eldest son in their hometown for their mother to take care of. " Zhu said that in the past, the eldest son would jump and run, but suddenly he didn't like walking some time ago, and even if he walked, he was limping. Later, he found that his eldest son had a sore foot. After examination, he found that his eldest son also had leukemia.
A pair of twin sons got sick at the same time, which made Zhu wonder. "In order to treat the children, the family has been heavily in debt. Now I want to do the second heart surgery for my eldest son this year, but suddenly I got leukemia, which is really difficult. "
My brother also suffers from congenital heart disease.
Mother suspected that painting decoration and taking medicine during pregnancy were the main incentives.
Zhu told reporters that the eldest son has been in poor health and lived in the ward for almost a long time after birth. Since my youngest son got leukemia, one year has passed, and the family has done everything for treatment, and borrowed more than 300,000 foreign debts. "When relatives and friends borrow money, they can only borrow 20,000 at most. We are not rich there. Now there is really no money to treat two children. " Zhu said that now two children are lying in beds in Suzhou Children's Hospital, two adjacent beds, 1 1 and 12. Seeing two children every day, my heart is full of entanglements, but I will work hard and stick to it no matter how much money I spend.
Because the eldest son suffers from congenital heart disease, the doctor says leukemia is difficult to treat. His attending doctor told the reporter: "There are many taboos for treating congenital heart disease and leukemia at the same time. It is difficult to choose drugs for treatment, drugs for chemotherapy and chemotherapy schemes. In addition, the eldest son has no spleen, so he has no resistance. After chemotherapy, the lack of spleen in the body will inevitably cause infection, and finally it can't be controlled. "
Due to the special circumstances of the eldest son Zhu, the hospital decided to make a more secure treatment plan after consultation. As for the later treatment expenses, Zhu, as a twin father, told reporters that he would never give up his two children anyway.
Although Zhu said that the two children would not give up, the huge economic burden had made them unable to bear the heavy medical expenses, so they turned to the local media "News Night Bus" in Suzhou for help. After the program was broadcast, many enthusiastic viewers lent a helping hand and brought them warmth. Let this desperate family see hope again. These well-intentioned people came to the hospital, left the money in a hurry, and sent blessings to the children: "I hope your children are healthy and healthy, and you should be strong." Zhu and his wife were very moved.
Speaking of two children suffering from leukemia, Zhu told reporters: "We live on the edge of the countryside and the air is very good. Before we got married, we painted a lot of decorations. Later, a doctor told me that it might be for this reason. In addition, my wife vomited when she was pregnant for two or three months, and later took some medicine. Although the eldest son has congenital heart disease, the younger son's chromosome is normal, and some doctors say that taking medicine during pregnancy affects his function. " However, when two children got sick at the same time, Zhu was at a loss.
Expert consultation
twins
Genes are similar, and the probability of suffering from the same disease is 20 times higher than that of ordinary people.
In the news reports we contacted in the past, we often saw reports that twins suffered from the same disease. The reporter found in the online search that such examples are not uncommon, and the diseases of twins involve many aspects.
So, do you often suffer from the same disease? The reporter contacted Lu Jun, deputy chief physician of hematology department of Suzhou Children's Hospital. Lu Jun told reporters that not all identical twins will get the same disease, but the probability of identical twins suffering from the same disease is 20 times higher than that of normal people.
Why identical twins are more likely to suffer from the same disease than ordinary people? Dr. Lu said that in the final analysis, it is still a genetic problem. Identical twins have the same genes, so when tumors or other diseases occur, the susceptibility genes are the same. Therefore, two people face the same disease, and the probability of getting it is much higher than that of ordinary people.
The reporter immediately contacted Professor Ke Zhi, Deputy Chief Physician of Pediatrics of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Professor Ke told reporters: "It is rare for twins to suffer from leukemia at the same time, because heredity does not play an absolute role in this disease." Professor Ke told reporters that the onset of leukemia is mainly caused by external influences, such as virus infection, chemical poisons and radiation. Nowadays, many chemical poisons in home decoration can cause blood reactions, but the specific aspects that cause diseases should be analyzed according to the patients themselves. Therefore, twins in the same environment suffer from the same disease and have the same susceptibility genes.
Professor Ke told reporters that identical twins will get the same disease if they grow up in the same environment because their genes are exactly the same. But if their external factors are different, the chances of getting sick are different, which is not absolute.
Fraternal twins
The incidence rate is similar to that of ordinary brothers and sisters.
Professor Ke told reporters: "The acquired environment also has a great relationship with the health of two people. They have similar constitutions, the same living environment and similar diets. Therefore, they usually get sick together. " In the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Professor Ke has received many twin patients.
"The most common disease when two people get together is a cold, because two people will have cross-infection of diseases in the same environment. The two people have the same living environment, similar dietary conditions, close contact and easy cross-infection. It's not surprising if they get sick together. " Professor Ke said that the probability of two fraternal twins getting seriously ill is similar to that of ordinary brothers and sisters, and children with a family history of genetic diseases are at greater risk than others.
Professor Ke said that leukemia is a rare disease of identical twins, but generally speaking, if it is a family genetic disease, it is more common for two people to suffer from it at the same time.
When it comes to twins being sick at the same time, many people naturally think of the role of "telepathy". Professor Ke of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University told reporters that there is no necessary connection between the two, and there is no scientific basis for the time being. Professor Ke said that telepathy has no definite statement in science, and it is unscientific to study it with modern objective materialism. It is true that such a phenomenon may occasionally exist in society, but it is a turning point deviation in social communication. "A small telepathic event may be widely spread, but the ordinary part without telepathy is ignored, which is the expansion of accidental factors."
Professor Ke said that telepathic plots also exist in TV dramas, but TV dramas are exaggerated in artistic techniques. In fact, there is no necessary connection between the two.
"Although two fraternal twins have the same genes, they will not get sick at the same time because of different living environments." Professor Ke said.