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Key Statistics About Childhood Leukemia...
Leukemia is the most common cancer in children and adolescents. It accounts for about one third of all cancers in children under age 15 and one fourth of cancers occurring before age 20.
Of the estimated 3,800 children (ages 0-19) who will develop leukemia in
2007, about 73% (2,790) will be diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia
(ALL). Most of the remaining cases of leukemia will be acute myelogenous
leukemia (AML). Chronic leukemias are rare in children.
ALL is most common in early childhood, peaking between 2 and 3 years of age.
AML is most common during the first 2 years of life and is less common among
older children. AML cases start to increase again during the teenage years, with
AML becoming the most common acute leukemia in adults.
ALL is slightly more common among white children than among African-American
and Asian-American children and is more common in boys than in girls. AML occurs
equally among boys and girls of all races.
The 5-year survival rate for ALL in children has greatly increased over time
and is now 87%. This is primarily due to advances in treatment. Five-year survival
rates of children with AML have also increased over time to about 53%.
The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of patients who live at least
5 years after their cancer is diagnosed. Many of these patients live much longer
than 5 years after diagnosis, and 5-year rates are used to produce a standard
way of discussing prognosis.
Five-year relative survival rates do not include
patients dying of other diseases and are considered to be a more accurate
way to describe the prognosis for patients with a particular type and stage
of cancer. Of course, 5-year survival rates are based on patients diagnosed
and initially treated more than 5 years ago. They may no longer be accurate.
Improvements in treatment result in a more favorable outlook for recently
diagnosed patients.
With Childhood Leukemia the outlook for each patient is different, depending
mostly on prognostic factors.
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