Childhood Cancer mortality statistics

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Although cancer in children is relatively rare and survival rates are now good, death in childhood after infancy from other causes in the UK is now so rare that cancer is still an important cause of death in older children ( Table 2.2). 2

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Nearly a quarter of all deaths in the age group 5 to 14 in England and Wales in 2000-02 were recorded as being caused by cancer. In this age group cancer was the most common cause of death in girls, and the second most common (after accidents) in boys. In the age group 1 to 4 cancer caused nearly 15% of deaths.

In childhood cancer patients in Britain, the diagnostic group with the largest number of deaths under the age of 15 during the period 1997-2001 was leukaemias (32%), followed by brain and spinal tumours (30%) ( Figure 2.1). 1

Figure 2.1: Annual average number of deaths in children aged under 15 previously diagnosed with cancer, by diagnostic group and sex, Great Britain 1997-2001

In nearly all the main diagnostic groups, deaths were more common in boys than in girls. There were about 80 deaths per year under the age of 15 in ALL patients, and about 35 in neuroblastoma patients (see Appendix).

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