Back in the 1960s, survival rates for children with cancer were less than 30 per cent. Today, thanks mostly to global collaboration in clinical research, that rate has climbed to 80 per cent.
As a result of our participation in this global research effort, the survival rates for Australian children are equivalent or better than the outcomes in the USA or Europe. For the most common form of childhood cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, the cure rate is approaching 90 per cent.
However, cancer remains the leading cause of non-accidental death in children in Australia. The rate of improvement has plateaued as the limits of currently available therapies, such as conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy, have been reached. Our next leaps are most likely to come from the use of new agents that target the molecular and genetic aberrations driving each individual cancer.
Often referred to as “personalised medicine”, this next phase of treatment will be highly specialised, and will ideally mean less long-term side effects because of that molecular and genetic characterisation — drugs will be targeted specifically to the cancer cell, with less collateral damage to normal tissue.
This would be an ideal outcome for anybody with cancer, but is especially important when it comes to treating children.