A report from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that the frequency childhood cancers has increased by 13% over the last twenty years. The reasons would not only be environmental but would also be due to better detection of the disease.
Based on information collected worldwide on nearly 300,000 cases of cancer diagnosed between 2001 and 2010, the WHO and International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) study shows that leukemia is the most common cancer in children under the age of 15, accounting for almost a third of childhood cancer cases.
More and more cancers in adolescents
Central nervous system tumors rank second (20% of cases) and lymphomas accounted for 12% of diagnoses.
In children under 5, a third of cancer cases were embryonic tumors, such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, nephroblastoma or hepatoblastoma.
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“Cancer is an important cause of death in children and adolescents, despite its relatively rare presence before the age of 20”, said Christopher Wild, director of the IARC , emphasizing the onset of cancer in adolescents aged 15-19 years. The annual incidence rate in this age group is 185 cases per million adolescents.
Among teenagers, the most frequent cancers are lymphomas (23%), followed by carcinomas and melanomas (21%).
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