Thursday, February 15, 2024, 13:34
Experiencing cancer before the age of 14 is an experience that no child should ever have to go through, but thanks to medical advances, at least in Spain, more than 80% of patients recover and survive five years or more after contracting cancer. Now I can do it. Diagnosed.
This is a big number that experts, doctors and psychologists are focusing on today (February 15), which is International Childhood Cancer Day. The scheme began in Luxembourg in 2001 with the aim of making the community aware of the importance of childhood cancer and the need for prompt diagnosis and appropriate treatment.
As pointed out by the Spanish Cancer Society, childhood cancer includes many diseases with different characteristics, but blood cancers such as leukemia, which affect more than 30% of childhood cancer patients, Lymphoma is divided into two groups, accounting for 15% of patients. % of cases, solid tumors such as brain tumors also affect 16%.
According to the Spanish Childhood Cancer Federation, 1,500 cancers are diagnosed each year in Spain among children aged 0 to 18, but this is a very small proportion of the 290,000 annual diagnoses in adults. .
Due to the lack of figures for 2023, in the 2022 data a total of 76 childhood cancers and 18 bone marrow transplants were detected by specialists in pediatrics and pediatric hematology at Materno Infantil Hospital in Malaga. It has been shown that According to the center’s own data, there were 60 tumors and 16 new leukemia cases in children under 14. Around 70 cases were detected in 2021, a slight increase over the past 12 months.
Despite survival data, cancer remains the leading cause of death in Spain up to the age of 14, with leukemia being the most common cancer type (27%), followed by central nervous system tumors (22.6%) and lymphoma (12.4%). ). %), according to the Spanish Pediatric Tumor Registry.