Survival rates increase for children beating cancer

The number of children beating cancer has risen to more than eight in 10, figures show.

In the last decade the number of children surviving cancer for five years or more has risen from 79 per cent to 82 per cent, Cancer Research UK said. In the 1960s only three in 10 survived after a diagnosis.

Survival rates for liver and bone tumours have made “particularly good progress”, a spokesman said. In the last 10 years, five-year survival rates rose from 67 per cent to 82 per cent for liver tumours and 61 per cent to 68 per cent for bone cancer.

But the charity warned there is “still some way to go” with certain forms of the disease such as neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that develops in the nerve cells, and medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumour. They have five-year survival rates of 67 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively.

Professor Pam Kearns, director of Cancer Research UK clinical trial’s unit in Birmingham, said: “As more children survive cancer, it is important we concentrate on improving the quality of life after cancer.”