• Question: can little kids catch cancer?

    Asked by icecream19 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 13 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Yes anyone can get cancer at any age, however childhood cancers are rare. Most people don’t get cancer until they’re older.

      The most common childhood cancers are those in the brain or immune system.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Unfortunately, some children are born with cancer. And some pre-school children get cancer. These can usually be traced back through the parents families.

      Anyone can get cancer at any age, but most cancers affect older people (over 60). Some cancers are more common in children though – leukemia and an eye cancer called retinoblastoma for example. Retinoblastoma is one of the cancers that can be traced back through family histories.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Less than 1% of cancer cases occur in children under the age of 14. There are specific cancers that occur in children as mentioned these include rentioblastoma, lymphomas an leukaemias. Another childhood tumour is called Wilms tumour. This is a tumour that occurs in the kidney, usually tumour only occur in one kidney but in 5-10% of cases it can occur at the same time in both kidneys. Although these tumours are quite large before they are found, most are detected before they have spread. Histologically (looking at the cells) there are two types of Wilms tumour, 1/10 cases are known as anaplastic wilms tumour these are harder to treat but 9/10 cases are more favourable and easier to cure.

    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Absolutely anyone can get cancer at any age, including children, but only around 1% of all cancer that are diagnosed affect people under 24 years old.
      Although, no one can catch cancer as it isn’t infectious like colds or flu, it develops from faulty cells. How often cells become faulty and how good the body is at finding and getting rid of them is affected by the genes that you inherit from your parents, that’s why some versions of genes can lead to a higher risk of cancer.

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