In the past 33 years, the number of children who have died from cancer in Britain has decreased by about half.
Since the late 1980s, the mortality rate has decreased as a result of research and clinical trials conducted in the United Kingdom.
Between 1987 and 1989, 39 per million children under the age of 14 perished from cancer.
However, according to Cancer Research UK (CRUK), this number has decreased to 21 per million children.
Statistics indicate 253 children died of cancer between 2017 and 2019; however, if mortality rates had not declined since their peak in the 1970s, this number would have been closer to 800, according to a separate analysis.
Since the 1970s, approximately 17,000 childhood cancer deaths have been prevented.
The treatment of childhood leukemia has seen some of the most significant advancements, with a 60 percent decline in deaths over the past three decades.
Approximately third fewer people are dying from brain and spinal tumors.
The United Kingdom conducts some of the world’s most successful clinical trials, according to experts.
British scientists were instrumental in discovering the most efficient combination of chemotherapy medications to treat Hodgkin lymphoma; consequently, more than nine out of ten patients survive today.
In the meantime, hundreds more patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia are expected to survive because of a CRUK experiment conducted nearly 15 years ago.
Dr. Laura Danielson, CRUK’s children’s and young people’s research lead, praised the news but noted, “Further work is needed to produce more effective treatments with fewer side effects, especially for some malignancies, such as bone cancer, where development is lacking.”
The release of the statistics coincides with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, during which CRUK solicits donations for crucial research. Michelle Mitchell, the chief executive officer of Cancer Research UK, stated, “More youngsters are surviving cancer and maturing into exceptional people.
