The new C suggests improvements in treatment have effectively extended the lives and prevented the deaths of many children fighting cancer.
The research shows the 15-year death rate for children with cancer has steadily decreased since the 1970s, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital reported. The researchers believe the results are largely linked to changes in pediatric cancer therapy and follow-up care.
These changes include reductions in the "use and dose of radiation therapy and chemotherapy drugs called anthracyclines for treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Hodgkin lymphoma and Wilms tumor, a cancer of the kidneys." These treatments have been associated with serious adverse side effects, such as heart failure and an increased risk of developing other cancers.
"These results suggest that we have learned how and when to back off of therapy, and we are better about recognizing and managing the late effects of treatment," said the study's first and corresponding author Greg Armstrong, an associate member of the Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control and the principal investigator of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. "The bottom line is that childhood cancer survivors in more recent eras are living longer."
The study included 34,033 childhood cancer survivors diagnosed between 1970 and 1999 and lived for at least five years following their diagnosis. Between the period of 1970 to 1974 and 1990 to 1994, the 15-year death rate for cancer survivors dropped from 12.4 percent to 6 percent; Deaths from treatment complications fell from 3.5 percent to 2.1 percent. The improvements were most significant in patients with ALL, Hodgkin lymphoma or Wilms tumor as their primary cancer. The five-year survival rate for pediatric patients with these types of cancers proved to jump to 90 percent or better. The researchers noted reducing treatment is not a beneficial action for patients with certain types of cancer.
"For certain childhood cancers like high-risk neuroblastoma and bone tumors, we have not backed off of therapy, because cure rates remain unacceptably low," Armstrong said.
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