Childhood cancer: the facts

Cancer is terrible, but especially so in a child. It kills more children than any other disease in Australia¹ and each death represents at least 65 years of life lost from normal expectancy.² Typically, children’s cancers are diagnosed in patients who are 15 years or younger.³   

Incidence

Each year, 950 children and adolescents in Australia⁶ – and 175,000 children worldwide⁵ are diagnosed with cancer.  

Incidence is higher in boys (average of 337 per year vs 282 for girls).³

Almost half of childhood cancers are diagnosed in children aged 0–4.³ 

Mortality

Every week, nearly three children and adolescents in Australia6 – and 1,800 children worldwide⁵ die from cancer.

Survival rates

Sixty years ago, cancer was nearly always a death sentence for a child.⁷ Today, eight out of 10 children survive.³

In Australia, an estimated one in 900 young adults aged between 16 and 45 years is a survivor of childhood cancer. However, up to 70 per cent of long-term survivors go on to develop one or more chronic health conditions as a result of having been treated for cancer as children.⁸

Many survivors experience illness due to the late effects of disease and cancer-related therapies – including organ toxicity, growth and hormonal deficiencies, infertility and secondary cancers.³

The disease

Individual causes remain unknown for more than 90 per cent of childhood cancer cases.⁹

Almost half of all childhood cancer begins in the womb.⁹

The most common childhood cancers are acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, brain cancer, lymphoma and neuroblastoma.⁹

Childhood cancer does not discriminate; it can affect any child from any socioeconomic or cultural background.⁹

Unlike many adult cancers, childhood cancer is not associated with lifestyle and nothing can be done to prevent it.⁹

References

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009. A picture of Australia’s children 2009. Cat. No. PHE 112. AIHW: Canberra.
2. http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/10072/52076/85563_1.pdf
3. Youlden D, Baade P, Ward L, Valery P, Hassall T, Green AC, Aitken JF, 2010. Childhood cancer survival in Australia, 1995-2004. Viertel Centre for Research in Cancer Control, Cancer Council Queensland and the Australian Paediatric Cancer Registry: Brisbane, Queensland.
4. Australian Paediatric Cancer Registry
5. http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-027766.pdf
6. 0-19 years incidence data. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Australian Cancer Incidence and Mortality (ACIM) Books, 2015 http://www.aihw.gov.au/acim-books Accessed 9 September 2015.
7. http://publications.cancerresearchuk.org/downloads/Product/CS_KF_CHILDHOOD.pdf (Fewer than 3 in 10 children survived cancer in the late 1960s)
8. Children’s Cancer Institute https://www.ccia.org.au/our-research/life-after-cancer/long-term-follow-project/
9. Children and Cancer, in Children’s Health and the Environment, a WHO Training Package for the Health Sector, World Health Organization. In turn citing:
   • Birch JM. Genes & Cancer” Arch Dis Child 1999, 80:1-3.
   • Lichtenstein P et al” N Engl J Med 2000, 13;343(2) 78-85