September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Each year in the United States, more than 15,000 kids and young adults are diagnosed with cancer—that’s about 43 per day. In Australia it is about 750 per year of 0 to 14 years old.

Though the 5-year-survival rate for childhood cancers has reached 80 per cent, nearly 2,000 kids in the US under age 19 die each year, making cancer the leading killer of children by disease.

In 2016, over 300,000 kids and young adults were diagnosed worldwide.

Childhood cancer is still a big problem because:

Children’s cancer can’t be treated exactly like adult cancers

Current treatments are toxic, affect a child’s development and can continue on for decades. The causes of childhood cancer are largely unknown. We need to study what causes childhood cancer to understand what treatments work best.

Many childhood cancer survivors suffer from lifelong damage to their organs, mental health and more.

We need to understand how treatments affect kids long-term so we can prevent long term effects.