Childhood Cancer Statistics
Each year, the parents of approximately 15,700 kids will hear the words “your child has cancer.” Across all ages, ethnic groups and socio-economics, this disease remains the number one cause of death by disease in children. Despite major advances – from an overall survival rate of 10 percent just fifty years ago to nearly 90 percent today, for many rare cancers, the survival rate is much lower. Furthermore, the number of diagnosed cases annually has not declined in nearly 20 years.
Worldwide 300,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year, that’s one child every two minutes.
Currently children are being treated with drugs that are 20-30 years old, they are highly toxic and cause complications later in life.
In the US and the UK childhood cancer is the biggest killer of children aged between 1 -14 years old. Very little money is being invested in finding new drugs to treat childhood cancer.
Cancers in children are generally different diseases to cancer in adults. The most common types of cancer in children are extremely rare in adults so we must be treat them differently.
In low income countries survival rates are as low as 10%, compared to 84% in high income countries.
New adult cancer drugs are not routinely tested to see if they are suitable to treat children meaning children do not get immediate benefit from current medical advances.