Pediatric cancer is the second leading cause of death after accidents in children and adolescents in the U.S.
Pediatric cancers are rare, accounting for just one to 1.5% of all cancers.
More than half of pediatric cancers (approximately 60%) are solid tumors with a diverse spectrum of tumor types.
Pediatric cancers are the most common fatal disease of childhood.
In contrast to adult malignancies, which are frequently driven by oncogenic mutations, many childhood cancers have a low burden of somatic mutations and have a much higher likelihood of being caused by her line mutations in genes that predispose development of cancer.
The incidence of some pediatric cancers has increased recently and include: thyroid carcinoma hepatic tumors, lymphomas, renal tumors and brain tumors.
Pediatric melanomas have decreased in incidence.
Most cases, unlike adult cancers which are epithelial in origin and may be influenced by the environment, are dysontogenic.
Screening techniques are less effective in pediatric tumors than in adult tumors.
Mortality rates have declined from pediatric cancers 2% per year over the last three decades.
Approximately 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the US.
Overall survival 5 years after diagnosis is greater than 79% for all pediatric cancers.
Almost 80% of children and adolescents with cancer become long-term survivors.
Patients show higher prevalence of morphological abnormalities compared with normal control patients
Leukemia and brain tumors account for 53% of cancers diagnosed among children younger than age 15 years.
Pediatric cancers with the highest incidence rates are leukemia 45.6 per million, brain tumors 30.8 and lymphomas 26.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia represents about one third of all cases of pediatric malignancies.
An estimated 4,450 children and adolescents diagnosed with either leukemia or brain tumor annually.
About 1 in every 250 adults expected to be a survivor of a childhood cancer, in the near future.
Long term problems include second primary tumors, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary illnesses, fatigue, obesity, impaired thyroid function, neuroendocrine dysfunction, growth hormone deficiency, gonadal dysfunction, kidney disease, bladder disease, osteoporosis, impaired hearing, impaired vision, and cognitive abnormalities.
Children surviving acute lymphoblastic leukemia and malignant brain tumors have increased incidence of neurocognitive impairments compared to healthy peers.
PET scans improve staging in sarcomas when compared to conventional imaging alone.
Mini pediatric tumors have age-dependent Gene fusion events, in which two genes join to form an
Oncogenic hybrid, and focal areas of gene deletion.