Childhood Cancers

Significant research into the cause, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of childhood cancers is being conducted. Hundreds of clinical trials are being planned or conducted at any given time. Studies mainly focus on effective means of treatment, better ways of treating the disease, improving the quality of life for patients, or appropriate care in remission.

There are several good websites you can find comprehensive information about the childhood cancers such as symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and care.

Monty’s Corner focuses only on the causes and risk factors of childhood cancers; hence, in this section we have provided only the classifications of childhood cancers and statistical incidence results.

Childhood cancers are classified based mainly on morphology and tissue of origin as in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

Most childhood cancers are classified in the following broad categories:

Leukaemias (25%) - ALL, AML, CML and others

Lymphomas and reticuloendothelial neoplasms – Hodgkin lymphoma (5%) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (6%)

Central nervous system neoplasms (20%) – Astrocytoma and other gliomas, primative neuroectodermal tumours (PNET), medulloblastoma and others

Sympathetic nervous system tumours – Neuroblastoma (7%), ganglioneuroblastoma and others

Retinoblastoma

Renal tumours - Wilm’s tumour (6%), renal cell carcinoma and others

Hepatic tumours – Hepatoblastoma, hepatocellular carcinoma

Malignant bone tumours – Osteosarcoma (3%), Ewing’s sarcoma (2%)

Soft tissue sarcomas – Rhabdomyosarcoma (3%), fibrosarcoma and others

Germ cell, trophoblastic and other gonadal neoplasms

Malignant epithelial neoplasms – Thyroid carcinoma, malignant melanoma and others