According to new federal data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), brain cancer is now more likely to kill more children than any other type of cancer, announced Friday.
National Center for Health Statistics says that in 1999, death by leukemia was higher than brain cancer, but in 2014, the two reversed and now brain cancer is at 29.9% while leukemia at 24.9%. Leukemia is known to be the type of cancer that affects the blood, and because of this, doctors are somewhat at ease in fighting this illness with processes like chemotherapy and other first hand cancer treatments. Other cancer-related deaths included bone and articular cartilage, thyroid, mesothelial and soft tissue and other endocrine glands.
Although there are still more new cases of leukemia these days than of brain cancer but deaths due to it has lessened due to the advancement of leukemia treatment over the past decades making it more curable compared to a frustrating lack of progress on brain cancer, experts said.
“We have learned over the past decade or so that childhood tumors are significantly different from adult tumors,” said Katherine Warren, head of pediatric neuro-oncology at the National Cancer Institute.
She said, kids with brain cancer are more difficult to treat, partly because the blood-brain barrier protects the central nervous system from toxins including many cancer drugs, which makes it harder to apply chemotherapy. Surgery, however, could also be difficult and even impossible depending on where the tumor is located in the brain while radiation treatment can damage the child’s brain development.
There has been a new factor that scientists have only recently begun to understand: brain cancers on kids/teens is biologically different from the adult kind, and as such will require a different treatment and approach (didn’t we at New hope always say – everyone has their own set of DNA and treatment must be tailored for each individual)
Experts are focusing on this new understanding and doing much more research to put a stop to the increasing trend of childhood deaths caused by this cancer in the United States.
Original news here: Brain Cancer is Now leading cancer killer of kids