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Overview
Overview
Progress through research
In the 1950s, the overall cure rate for childhood cancer was in the area of 10%.
GOOD NEWS! Survival rates have improved for childhood cancers. Recent Statistics Canada research found that the predicted five-year survival rate for children and adolescents who are diagnosed with cancer has shot up to 82%. That's 11% higher than the rate measured in a previous national study (1985 to 1988). This means that 4 out of every 5 children diagnosed with cancer will survive their journey. To read more, click here.
The number one key to this incredibly successful campaign to remove the threat and fear once associated with childhood cancer is research. Medical and psychosocial research in all their forms, including clinical trials, have made deep inroads into progressive new forms of treatment for children with cancer.
If we extend the current trend and rate of progress into even the near future, one can understand the optimism that we are close to the day when all children will be cured of their cancer and will go on to live full, productive lives.
Pediatric cancer research has also paid dividends in:
- Advancing our understanding of the basic biology of cancer;
- Treating adults with cancer; and
- Providing principles of therapy and advances for other diseases of children and adults.
As examples:
- Chemotherapy was first used to treat childhood cancer, before it was used on adults;
- The discovery of the first tumour suppressor gene occurred in children with cancer; and
- The principle of multi-modal therapy (multiple approaches applied in a systematic way) was pioneered in childhood cancer.
Some specific advances made by the childhood cancer research community in just the last 10 years, and with the support of the Childhood Cancer Foundation Candlelighters Canada, include:
- A decrease in childhood cancer mortality by 25%;
- Improved survival of acute lymphoblastic leukemia from 70% to 80%;
- Improved survival of acute non-lymphopblastic leukemia from 35% to 50%;
- Improved survival of the most common form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from 70% to 90%;
- Improved survival of widespread childhood neuroblastoma from 10% to 45%;
- Reduced by 50% or more the need for radiation therapy for the following groups of patients, thereby reducing risks of long-term effects of radiotherapy:
- acute lymphoblastic leukemia
- infants under three years of age with brain tumours
- adolescent females with Hodgkin's disease.
- Shortened the treatment time for the most common from of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma , Hodgkin's disease, and all forms of childhood acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia by 30%- 50%;
- Developed significantly strengthened recommendations for long-term follow-up care for all cancers of children and adolescents; and
- Established the first broad effort to develop and evaluate treatments for cancers common to adolescents and young adults, and demonstrated the superiority of pediatric treatment protocols over adult treatment protocols for a number of key young adult cancers.
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