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Cancer in children is rare and different from adult cancer: the common types are leukaemias, brain tumours, lymphomas and embryonal tumours such as neuroblastoma and Wilms tumour, most are curable in well-resourced health systems, and the great challenge is bringing the same cures to the majority of children who live where they are not available.
Childhood cancers are mostly not the carcinomas of adults but leukaemias, brain and spinal cord tumours, lymphomas and embryonal tumours that arise in developing tissue: neuroblastoma, Wilms tumour, retinoblastoma, hepatoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and bone sarcomas. Decades of cooperative group trials made most of them curable in high-income countries with combination chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, and newer approaches such as CAR-T for leukaemia, anti-GD2 antibodies for neuroblastoma and targeted drugs for BRAF- or ALK-driven tumours are improving results further. Survival is far lower in low- and middle-income countries, where most children with cancer live, because of late diagnosis, abandonment of treatment and lack of drugs; the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer aims to raise survival there to at least 60% by 2030. Survivors carry lifelong late effects, so reducing treatment intensity where cure is secure is a major research theme. Adolescents and young adults (15 to 39) sit between paediatric and adult services and often do worse than either.
About 400,000 children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 develop cancer each year worldwide (WHO); leukaemias, brain tumours and lymphomas are the commonest, and the chance of cure depends heavily on where a child lives.
Nothing recorded yet.
Also on OnCo: Symptoms and red flags · Early detection roadmap.
Risk-stratified multi-agent chemotherapy over two to three years for ALL, with immunotherapy (blinatumomab, CAR-T) for high-risk or relapsed disease. See the ALL page.
Surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy by risk group in cooperative group protocols; anti-GD2 antibody for high-risk neuroblastoma. See the neuroblastoma, Wilms, sarcoma and brain tumour pages.
Lifelong follow-up for late effects on heart, fertility, growth and second cancers, with a survivorship care plan; trials that reduce therapy where cure rates are high.
Trials recruiting now, the landmark trials, the trials held by this cancer's subtypes, the key papers and what they mean, the latest literature, and the milestones year by year.
The targets of this cancer's medicines and the ones linked to it directly.
Cases by country, the UK and NHS pathway and other country lenses, the expert centres with trials on record, and the centres named on this cancer's subtypes.
One section per setting: the options named, what each is for, the trials behind them, the recorded trade-offs and the questions to ask.
Fever of 38 C or higher, chills, low blood pressure, fast heartbeat or breathlessness, especially after a step-up dose. Boxed warning on teclistamab, epcoritamab, glofitamab, tarlatamab and blinatumomab.
Fever of 38 C or higher is grade 1 CRS; fever with low blood pressure, fast heartbeat, breathlessness or low oxygen is grade 2 or higher. The labels carry a boxed warning and say to report fever immediately.
A flood of inflammatory signals when immune cells are activated en masse, causing fever, low blood pressure, and sometimes organ failure.
When engineered T cells or a bispecific antibody switch on, the immune system can overshoot. The first sign is a fever, and the treatment is a drug that blocks the main signal, given early. A smaller number of people become confused or drowsy, which is graded and treated separately.
ICANS is confusion, speech difficulty, and rarely seizures after CAR-T or bispecific therapy.
Treatments that remove B cells also remove the antibodies B cells make, and some people never make them again. When repeated chest and sinus infections follow, donated antibody given monthly by drip or weekly under the skin prevents them.
See all on the product pages:BlinatumomabTisagenlecleucel·Printable cards in the navigator
Newly diagnosed? Read the first 60 days with Childhood cancers, then print the one-page appointment sheet with room for the answers.
Print this page for your appointment (your browser's print command). These prompts are for discussion; your clinical team knows your case.
Everything in development, the medicines held by this cancer's subtypes, the open problems and what is being done about them, the roadmaps, and what changed on this record.
Every connected record, the notes, the JSON, Markdown and RDF twins, and where the record came from and when it was checked.