The two little girls who recently fashioned their own cardboard lemonade stand and sold their homemade refreshments for 50 cents a cup are not your typical lemonade entrepreneurs. What makes them stand out from the usual crowd of lemonade peddlers? These girls -- Emily is four and Lily is six -- are both cancer patients, undergoing chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia and raising money for cancer research.

The two met last year at the Omaha Children's Hospital cancer clinic. Their mothers became fast friends, worked together on a neighborhood garage sale, and invited the little girls to set up a lemonade stand. The idea came from the story of another little girl, diagnosed with cancer just before her first birthday, who at age four opened her own stand with the goal of raising $1 million for her hospital. Only days before she died did she realize she would reach her goal.

How did Emily and Lily do? The totals are not yet in -- but they did raise $70 right away on the first day of the sale. And they reportedly had a grand time running their business.

Young patients that are diagnosed with a form of leukemia called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are at an increased risk of relapse if they have a high body mass index at the time of diagnosis.

Dr. Anna M. Butturini, lead investigator of a study that reported the findings, said "Obesity is associated with lower probability of cure in pre-adolescents and teenagers with ALL. A current analysis suggests that the same is true for adults with the same disease".

Dr. Butturini thinks that there is a need for better understanding of why obese patients have an increased risk of relapse. If this is found out, then better therapies for these young patients could be potentially designed.

Childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is being studied in a way to examine the chromosomes present in the diseased cells. Extra numbers of specific chromosomes are present and can arise according to a predictable pattern.

What does this mean? Our chromosomes carry the genes in all cells, which normally have 46 chromosomes. The ALL cells that are being studied can have more than 80 chromosomes.

This could help to understand what early events can cause this type of leukemia. The researchers also want to understand why children with ALL that have 51 or more chromosomes generally respond better to treatment than those with 50 or fewer chromosomes.

One of the authors of the study, Nyla A. Heerema, professor of pathology, states "The fact that an excess of certain chromosomes is associated with the particular overall number of chromosomes tells us that something significant happens when that first abnormal cell divides and initiates the disease"

Researchers are trying to figure out why these certain patterns occur and whether it can help guide decisions about therapy.

The primary recipient of the 2006 grants for Curing Kid's Cancer is the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Curing Kid's Cancer is a charity that raises money for leading edge pediatric cancer research. The organization was inspired by nine year old Killian Owen's battle with leukemia. The $100,000 grant was given to Johns Hopkins for research into new targeted therapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Curing Kid's Cancer has two national grassroots programs -- Coaches Curing Kid's Cancer and Teachers Curing Kid's Cancer.

The programs fund the development of cutting edge therapies which will revolutionize childhood cancer treatment by replacing traditional chemotherapy.

Curing Kid's Cancer aims to raise both awareness and money to find cures for all types of childhood cancers. Their objective is to turn this killer disease into a curable one in our lifetime.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is uncommon in adults between 15 and 50 years of age but occurs more frequently in individuals over 50 years of age. The Philadelphia chromosome is a specific gene mutation that occurs in about 20 percent of all ALL cases. The Philadelphia chromosome occurs when specific genetic information is switched. Patients who are Philadelphia chromosome positive typically do not respond well to standard therapies.

Researchers want to find new strategies to improve outcomes for Philadelphia chromosome positive ALL patients. Gleevec has shown some anticancer responses in these patients who no longer responded to standard treatments.

According to a study was done and published in the journal Leukemia, the survival at one year was 66 percent for those patients who received chemotherapy and Gleevec. Among comparison subjects the survival at one year was 43 percent.

What also sounded very promising was that the probability of surviving for one year without a relapse was 58 percent for those in the study and only 11 percent among comparison patients.

Is your child unusually fatigued? Do they bruise easier than normal? Are they more irritable than normal? Not to set off major alarms for every mother that has a child that played hard one weekend and is now over-tired and irritable and has some bruises from the rough and tumble play -- but if this is becoming a pattern in your child -- these are symptoms of childhood leukemia. Other signs are fever, bone pain, bleeding easily and weakness. The lymph nodes, spleen and liver may become swollen. Children commonly lose their appetite.

Diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia involves testing of the blood and bone marrow. Immediately after the diagnosis is confirmed, children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia must receive intensive treatment with anticancer drugs. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most curable form of leukemia, and during remission, most children return to a state of good health with 75-80 percent showing no evidence of leukemia five years after diagnosis.

Awareness of the symptoms and signs of this and all cancers is the key to catching something early and having a better outlook for recovery. Let them play, tumble, tag, slide, and even get dirty. Just notice the changes from their every day routines.