Incidence of Cancer in Children | 31 Jul 2019

A recent study conducted by Lancet pointed out that 82% of cancer cases among children comes from poorer countries.

According to the report, children with cancer in low-and middle-income countries are four times more likely to die of the disease than children in high-income countries.
The study quantifies the burden of paediatric cancer in terms of number of healthy years lost for a country.
- Globally, in 2017, around 11.5 million disability adjusted life years (DALY)s are lost due to childhood cancer.
The incidence or rate of cancer among India’s children is much lower than in the West.
- The rate of cancer among children in India is 80-90 children per 1,00,000 while the corresponding figure in the west is around 160.
In India, many hospitals like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, Delhi), Tata Memorial Hospital (Mumbai) and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI-Chandigarh) have cancer survival rates almost equivalent to Western countries.

Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer

It was launched by World Health Organisation in 2018.
It aims to reach at least a 60% survival rate for children with cancer by 2030, thereby saving an additional one million lives. This target represents a doubling of the global cure rate for children with cancer.