UK child cancer death rate down 24% in past decade

Updated

The number of children dying from cancer in the UK is falling, new figures show.

Cancer Research UK said the number of children dying from cancer each year has dropped from around 330 a decade ago to around 260 now.

The rate of children dying from cancer has also dropped by 24% in the last decade.

Death rates for all cancers in children aged 14 and under have fallen from around 30 deaths per million in 2004 to almost 23 deaths per million today.

Around 1,500 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK and, while survival has tripled since the 1960s, around five children still die from cancer every week.

Professor Pam Kearns, director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit in Birmingham, said: "Although we're losing fewer young lives to cancer, a lot more needs to be done.

"There are still children's cancers where progress has been limited - such as brain and bone tumours.

"Cancer Research UK's long-standing commitment to investing in clinical trials for children with cancer has been a major factor in developing today's treatments and is pivotal to ongoing research that will offer new hope to the children and their families.

"Many children who survive cancer will live with the long-term side effects of their treatment that can have an impact throughout their adult lives, so it's vital that we find less toxic and even more effective treatments."

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