Childhood cancer cases elevate by 13 percent globally in last two decades: WHO

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has furnished details about the rise in childhood cancer cases across the globe.

WHO says that childhood cancer cases have risen by about 13 percent globally in the last two decades.

Part of this increase may be due to better, or earlier, detection of these cancers, the report said.

Based on information collected globally on almost 300,000 cancer cases diagnosed in 2001?2010, the study showed that leukaemia is the most common cancer in children younger than 15 years, making up almost a third of childhood cancer cases.

Tumours of the central nervous system ranked second (20 per cent of cases), and lymphomas accounted for 12 per cent of cases, according to the study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In children younger than five years, a third of the cases were embryonal tumours, such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, nephroblastoma, or hepatoblastoma.

The report also, for the first time, shows cancer occurrence in adolescents aged 15?19 years. The annual incidence rate was 185 per million adolescents, based on records of about 100,000 cancer cases.

The most common cancers were lymphomas (23 per cent), followed by the cases classified as carcinomas and melanoma (21 per cent).

(With PTI inputs)