The Wall Street Journal “Health Blog” reported that research published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that the overall survival rate for children with cancer is now approximately 80%. This is GREAT news.
However, during the past 10-20 years, the five-year survival rates for most solid tumors in children and teenagers have not changed, but overall, we’re curing more childhood cancer than we ever have in the past.
Nevertheless, with many newer and more effective treatments available for kids, the researchers report that “when 1975 age-specific death rates for children are used as a baseline, approximately 38,000 childhood malignant cancer deaths were averted in the United States from 1975 through 2006 as a result of more effective treatments identified and applied during this period.”
The blog also included an interview with Eugenie Kleinerman, professor and head of pediatrics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.