Increasing cancer incidence and improving childhood cancer survival 

Pediatric hematologist and oncologist at Rainbow Children's Hospital discusses the diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer.

In the initial councilling after diagnosis they couldn’t believe initially that it does carry more than 85 % chances of cure.

He came with more than a month history of fever, along with pain in joints and legs . His completeblood picture gave clue to possibility of blood cancer ( acute leukemia) and finally got diagnosed as ALL and treated for same and currently he is more than 5 years off treatment and leading normal life .

Overall the cancer is increasing in incidence across the world so in India as well. Pediatric Cancer accounts 6 to 10% of all cancers occuring every year .

All over the world Currently more than 4 lakh cancers getting diagnosed in under 15 years age group .Around 60000 new cancers are diagnosed in children every year in India .

In last two decades the incidence of cancer significantly gone up , partly because of true incidence going up and partly secondary to better awareness of the problem, better diagnostic facilities and more and more centers treating cancer .

Thankfully many of the childhood cancers are highly treatable provided they are diagnosed on time and treated in appropriate centre where facilites and expertise to manage these children are available. This includes pediatric oncologist, pediatric surgeons, critical care team, other subspecialities like pediatric neurology, trained and competent nursing staff, dieticians, psychologists etc. In last 3 to 4 decades, a common pediatric cancer like acute lymphoblastic leukemia survival rates improved from 20% to more than 80%.

In children cancers are more common in boys compared to girls . Most common childhood malignancy is acute leukemia also called commonly as blood cancer( 30 to 35 % of total childhood cancers)s followed by brain tumors, neuroblastoma, lymphoma( lymph nodes), wilms tumor(kidney), rhabdomyosarcoma/ soft tissue sarcomas (muscle and softtissue) and others.