09/03/2020
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Day 3 - Long-Term Outcomes for Children with Cancer
One thing that always confused us is the fact that we track five (5) year survival rates for children, just like we track 5 year survival rates for adults. Don’t we expect our kids to live longer than 5 years? This tracking system doesn’t consider a two (2) year old who lives 5 years but dies at age 6 from cancer. And, as we know, there are long-term health consequences for 95% of the 5-year survivors.
So, PAC2 took the data and graphed the Long-Term Outcomes for children with cancer. The data:
• On average, about 16% of children die within 5 years of diagnosis.
• Among those children who survive to 5 years from diagnosis, 18% of them will die over the next 25 years.
• More than 95% of childhood cancer survivors will have a significant health related issue by the time they are 45 years of age.
• These health related issues are side-effects of either the cancer or more commonly, the result of its treatment.
• 1/3 will suffer severe and chronic side effects
• 1/3 will suffer moderate to severe health problems
• 1/3 will suffer slight to moderate side effects
Combining the potential outcomes yields the attached graph.
In summary:
• 4% of kids will live at least 30 years with no health problems
• 63% of kids will live at least 30 years but have major to minor health problems
• 33% of kids will be killed by cancer within 30 years
Please help the fight for these kids.
OPINION - first of all, this is not to take away from the docs and researchers doing great work for our kids, it's not to discourage anyone. We think it shows the REALITY of childhood cancer. IMHO childhood cancer is misrepresented when we talk about an 85% "cure" rate. And, we think that misrepresentation diminishes the perceived need for better treatments, which can then lead to truly tragic consequences when it comes to funding more research, which is the only way we'll finally fix this tragedy of childhood cancer.
