Globally, 11.5 million years of healthy life were lost in 2017 due to cancer in a child or adolescent.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. For the first time, researchers have looked at the “normal” years of life lost in young cancer patients. Result: in 2017, 11.5 million years of healthy life were lost due to cancer in a child or adolescent, reveals the study published on July 29 in The Lancet Oncology Journal. In 97.3% of cases due to early death and in 2.7% due to disability caused by the disease.
To come to this terrible conclusion, Dr Lisa Force from St Jude’s Hospital on Children’s Research (USA) and her team assessed the burden of cancer in children and adolescents in 195 countries in 2017.
“While the number of cancer cases in children and adolescents (0 to 19 years old) is relatively low – 416,500 globally in 2017 – the treatment relating to the disease, the disabilities caused by the latter and the lethal cancers cause the loss of an estimated 11.5 million years of healthy life each year across the world.By presenting the global burden of childhood cancer across the window of affected life years, we found that cancer in children resulted in a significant disease burden despite a relatively low absolute number of incidents and deaths,” the researchers explain.
Children from the poorest countries represent 82% of the global rate
In detail, children under 4 accounted for 47% of the total burden of cancer in children with 4.3 million years of life affected by the disease. Leukemia and blood cancer are the leading cancers affecting children (34%). This is followed by brain and nervous system cancers (18% among 0-14 year olds) and testicular, ovarian and thyroid cancer (19% among 15-19 year olds).
And while in 2017 cancer ranked fourth among the diseases seriously affecting the quality of life of children in rich countries, in poor countries it took first place. Unsurprisingly, in countries with low and medium social and economic criteria, children are four times more likely to die of cancer than in a rich country. What’s more, young people in the poorest countries have to face an appallingly high rate of cancer, representing 82% of the global rate. This is the equivalent of almost 9.5 million healthy lives lost in 2017.
India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia face the highest rates of childhood cancer among the countries with the most children.
Diagnosis too late in the poorest countries
“Children with cancer who live in high-income countries do well: about 80% of them survive five years after their diagnosis. However, more than 90% of children at risk of developing childhood cancer each year live in low-income countries Considered by many to be one of the major advances of modern science, the improvement in childhood cancer outcomes seen in rich countries over the past few decades has not translated for most poor countries, where existing data suggest that there are far fewer children surviving”, worry the researchers who are sounding the alarm about late diagnoses in the most vulnerable countries.
“Collection of quality data and standardized reporting are crucial steps towards better care for children with cancer in low-income countries. National data collection on childhood cancer can guide investments in the training of specialists to ensure earlier diagnoses, provide equitable access to medicines, reduce the number of deaths and improve care for survivors and quality of life”, insist the editors of the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health in an editorial.
And to call on politicians to use this data to “determine the most effective way to spend limited resources and identify high-impact cancer control strategy decisions”.
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