Childhood cancer m nth

Treatments better, but still a long way to go

“Your child has cancer.”

• Though it’s sad and unfathomable, many parents hear those words. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children.

• September is recognized as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month with the primary purpose being to educate the public and raise money to support families caring for a child with cancer.

• According to the American Childhood Cancer Association (ACCA), there are more than 400,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year, worldwide.

In the United States, nearly 16,000 children and teens between infancy and 19 years old will be diagnosed. Thankfully, major treatment advances in recent decades have allowed an overall 84-percent of children with cancer to survive five years or more. An increase since the mid-1970s when the five-year survival rate was 60-percent.

Still, survival rates can vary depending on the type of cancer. For example, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) is a rare brain cancer affecting around 300 children per year, according to Boston Children’s Hospital.

There is no cure for DIPG, and only 10% of DIPG patients survive two years after diagnosis. The average time from diagnosis to death with DIPG is usually only nine months.

Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, had a 2-year-old daughter who died from DIPG in 1962. The same treatment given to his child in 1961 is still being used today.

Even if a child survives a cancer diagnosis, twothirds will have complications due to treatment; secondary cancers are a risk, heart damage, lung damage, infertility, chronic hepatitis, alterations in growth and development, impaired cognitive abilities, and psychosocial impacts.

Nearly 25-percent of children following treatment will have a life-threatening or severe health event. Globally, 44-percent die before they are diagnosed. In addition, there is a global economic disparity in treatment percentages. The estimated five-year survival rate for children with cancer is nearly 80-percent in higher income countries and only 7.4 percent in lower income countries.

In 2020, an estimated 181,000 children will go undiagnosed, about one-third of all cases, according to ACCA.

The types of cancers that develop in children often differ from the variations that develop in adults.

Unlike many adult cancers, childhood cancers are not strongly linked to lifestyle or environmental risk factors.

Furthermore, only a small number of childhood cancers are passed genetically from parent to child.

According to the American Cancer Society, the most common cancers of children are Leukemia (28 percent), Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors (26 percent), Neuroblastoma or Wilms tumor (6 percent), Lymphoma (7 percent) (including both Hodgkin and non-hodgkin), Rhabdomyosarcoma (3 percent), Retinoblastoma (2 percent) and bone cancer (3 percent) (including Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma).

Most children and teens with cancer in the United States are treated at centers that are members of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG).

These centers are normally affiliated with a teaching or children’s hospital.

Most treatments include clinical specialty disciplines such as pediatric oncology specialists, psychologists and child life specialists to support the family.

Clinical trials are conducted at these facilities to further advance knowledge and treatment of difficult-totreat cases.

The Cure Starts Now and the DIPG Collaborative are the biggest funders of DIPG research and are vested in finding the cure to DIPG.

With more than $14 million of Dipg-specific research collectively funded, these organizations are laser-focused on research and fueled by parents whose children lost battles with DIPG and brain cancer.

Only three state legislatures have taken direct action for childhood cancer research and support.

Accordingly, the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Funded Research Portfolio states from 2008 through 2017, the NCI spent only an average of 3.97 percent of its research funding on childhood cancer research.

Thus, more funding and resources need to be allocated for this type of research to help diminish childhood cancers.

GETTY IMAGES Cancer is the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 5 and 11. However, the success of cancer treatments has dramatically improved since the 1970s, so the chances of not only surviving, but thriving after childhood cancer is much better now than in the past.