The increase in survival of children and young people diagnosed with cancer has been astounding. In the 1970s in the UK, just 36% of children (aged 0-14 years) survived for 10 years beyond a cancer diagnosis. Now, it’s about eight in 10.
According to Laura Danielson, children’s and young people’s research lead at Cancer Research UK, cutting-edge research is the driving force behind this success. However, progress against different cancers is advancing at different rates. While about 99% of children diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer, survive for at least five years, for those diagnosed with certain types of brain tumours, survival beyond five years remains very low, at less than 25%. And although around 90% of children diagnosed with the most common type of leukaemia will survive for more than five years, the prognosis for other forms of this type of cancer isn’t as good.
