• Question: is the number of children getting cancer is creasing

    Asked by cupcake94 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 14 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      The number of children diagnosed with cancer is increasing, but very slowly compared to adults. There are possibly a couple of reasons for this; better and earlier detection will mean more cases of cancer will be reported (although the number of people affected might not change), but also some genetic diseases that affect children put them at a higher risk of getting cancer. Now that we have better treatments for people with genetic diseases and we can stop them from dying from the disease itself these children can often go on to develop cancer. Luckily, many cancers in children are treatable and have good survival rates.

    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Leahs right, children with genetic diseases are usually at a higher risk of developing cancer. As we can now keep alot of these children alive more of them can develop cancer.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Although the number of childhood cancers is increasing less than 1% of cancers occur in children under the age of 14.

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