TORONTO - More children with cancer are surviving than in the past because of advances in treatment, but that doesn't mean the battle is over for all of them, the Canadian Cancer Society says.
For all childhood cancers combined, 82 per cent of Canadian kids are living at least five years after diagnosis, a jump of 11 per cent in the last 15 years, the society said Wednesday in releasing its 2008 estimated national statistics on the disease.
About 850 Canadian children will be diagnosed with cancer this year and about 135 will die from the disease. (Overall, more than 166,000 Canadians of all ages will be diagnosed with cancer in 2008, and almost 74,000 will die.)
"We know that childhood cancer, fortunately, is a rare disease, but it is the leading cause of disease-related death in children over one month, second only to accidents," Heather Logan, the society's director of cancer control policy, told a news conference.
"When you look at childhood survival ... it shows us the advances we have been able to make," said Logan, noting that from 1985 to 1988, 71 out of every 100 Canadian children with cancer survived five years. That number rose to 82 in every 100 kids diagnosed between 1999 and 2003.
"And that's 11 more faces that are alive now that wouldn't have survived the disease more than 15 years ago."
But that doesn't mean their battle with the ravages of cancer are necessarily over: two thirds of kids who undergo cancer treatment develop "late-effect" health problems, and about a third of those are serious or life-threatening.
Alberta pediatric oncologist Dr. Paul Grundy, chair of the C17 Research Network for childhood cancer, said kids who survive malignancies are at increased risk for physical and emotional health problems later in life.
Changes in the brain resulting from chemotherapy and radiation can alter the ability to think and reason, causing difficulties in school; effects on the hormones and metabolism can cause such problems as infertility and delayed puberty; and certain organs, among them the heart, lungs and stomach, can also be damaged.
"There are side-effects of treatment that may not even occur for up to 20 years after the therapy," Grundy explained.
"We're very concerned about the development of second cancers, so not a relapse or recurrence of their original disease, but the development of an entirely new cancer, probably in large part caused by the original cancer chemotherapy or radiation," he said.
"These are the physical ones. We also have to be concerned about various psychological or emotional issues related to cancer survivorship."
Trevor Johnson is all too familiar with cancer and the ongoing fallout from treatment. Now 23, he was diagnosed at four with leukemia and treated for three years with chemotherapy and radiation - including cranial radiation to prevent spread of the disease to his central nervous system - before the cancer was declared in remission.
But at age nine, the leukemia returned and he endured another three years of even more intensive treatment before he was again declared cancer-free.
"When I had the cranial radiation back when I was four, it did stunt my growth a bit, especially my upper extremity," said Johnson, who works in sales for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club and is celebrating 12 years without cancer.
