CHILDHOOD CANCERS NEED DEDICATED RESEARCH

■ CHILDHOOD Cancer Awareness Month runs throughout September and aims to make a difference to treatment, research and early diagnosis.

■ CANCER is the leading cause of death from disease in children aged 1-14 years in the UK.

■ TEN children are diagnosed with cancer in the UK every day – that’s almost 4,000 children and young people every year.

A quarter will not survive treatment and the vast majority can be left with lifelong side effects.

■ BOYS are more likely than girls to develop cancer and more than twice as likely to develop lymphomas.

■ IN Britain, childhood cancer incidence rates increased by 38% between 1966 and 2000, but some of this is thought to be due to improvements in diagnosis and registration.

■ EARLY symptoms can include continued, unexplained weight loss, headaches often with early morning vomiting, increased swelling or persistent pain in joints, bones, back and legs, lumps or masses, excessive bruising, bleeding or rash, constant infections and tiredness.

■ THE most common childhood cancer is leukaemia, accounting for almost one third of cases.

■ AROUND 250 children aged up to 14 years lose their lives to cancer every year in the UK and the average five-year survival rate, across all childhood cancer types is 82%.

■ CHILDHOOD cancers are different to the cancers that occur in adults and need dedicated research.