Credit: Logan Tuttle
The rate of children dying from cancer in the UK has dropped 22% in the last decade, according to new figures published by Cancer Research UK.
From 2001 to 2003, 328 children died from cancer each year. But from 2010 to 2012, the annual death toll from childhood cancers decreased to 258.
The steepest decline in mortality was among leukemia patients. Death rates across all forms of leukemia combined dropped by 47%, from 102 to 53 deaths each year.
For acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the annual mortality rate decreased by 52%, falling from 63 to 29 deaths per year. For acute myeloid leukemia, the death rate fell by 33%, from 30 to 20 deaths per year. And for chronic myeloid leukemia, the death rate decreased by 74%, from 2 deaths per year to 1.
Annual mortality rates decreased for lymphoma patients as well. For all lymphomas, the death rate decreased by 31%, falling from 15 to 11 deaths per year. And for non-Hodgkin lymphomas, the rate dropped 35%, from 14 to 10 deaths per year.
Much of this success is due to new combinations of chemotherapy drugs, but efforts to improve imaging and radiotherapy techniques has also played a part, according to Cancer Research UK.
“It’s very encouraging to see that fewer children are dying of cancer, but a lot more needs to be done,” said Pam Kearns, director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit in Birmingham.
“Many children who survive cancer will live with the long-term side effects of their treatment that can have an impact throughout their adult lives, so it’s vital that we find kinder and even more effective treatments for them.”
Around 1600 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK. Overall survival for childhood cancer has tripled since the 1960s. The proportion of children surviving their cancer for at least 10 years increased from 24% in 1966-1970 to 76% in 2001-2005.
Note: The above figures are age-standardized mortality rates, which take the age and size of the population into account, providing a figure for the number of children who die from cancer per million individuals. Looking at the numbers of children dying from the disease does not adjust for the increasing size of the UK population over the last 10 years, so changes in the numbers of deaths will not match the changes in rates.