Some good news in the war against cancer.
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“Tattoo” Tom Mitchell comforts leukemia patient Sydney Belsher past year at Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders in Falls Church, Va.
Treatment of pediatric cancer is a relatively niche discipline: 1,785 children and teens died of cancer in the U.S.in 2014. That means that leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, is no longer the leading cause of cancer deaths. According to previous reports, leukemia used to be the most severe disease which lea to infancy death. In the case of childhood brain cancer, the number has increased from 516 in 1999 to 534 in 2014. That’s due to advances in leukemia treatment over the past few decades and because leukemia is easier than brain cancer to treat, experts said.
A review of 15 years of death certificates has prompted a change in the ranking of risky childhood cancers.
Accidental injuries remained the leading cause of death for those under 19, followed by suicide and murder, according to the report.
“Forms of leukemia that a generation ago were nearly universally fatal are now nearly universally curable”, said Sally Curtin, an author of the report, in a telephone interview. This is according to Elizabeth Ward of the American Cancer Society.
Besides brain cancer and leukemia, other pediatric malignancies commonly involve bones, the thyroid and other endocrine glands and soft tissue.
The brain is protected by a barrier which helps keeps many risky chemicals – including many cancer drugs – from getting to brain tissue or brain tumors.
The researchers in charge with the statistics said that more and more brain cancer cases in children started to appear in 2011, and the number has been increasing ever since. However, this a more hard task than leukemia, as brain tumors require extremely delicate surgery.
Researchers are aware that a great challenge is ahead of them, namely developing an efficient treatment for brain cancer. Doctors say that even if they survive the surgery, there are still many risks regarding their future development.
Another factor is that scientists have only recently begun to understand that pediatric brain cancers may be biologically different from adult versions, and could require different approaches to treatment.
The report, released on Friday, reports that the cancer death rate for kids and adolescents between the ages of 1 and 19 fell significantly from 1999 to 2014. There were 445 leukemia deaths.
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Overall, the report showed, cancer death rates among children and adolescents dropped 20 percent between 1999 and 2014, continuing a long-term trend.
