Australia has achieved remarkable milestones against many childhood cancers over recent decades. Sustained research and robust clinical trial participation have transformed diagnoses once considered universally fatal into survivable diseases for thousands of children.
Yet, that progress has left one devastating exception behind.
Speaking at the Parliamentary Friends of Childhood Cancer event in Canberra, Professor Jordan Hansford, ANZCHOG’s Chair of the Central Nervous System Tumours Group, highlighted a sobering reality: brain cancer remains the most common cause of cancer death among Australian children.
In 2024, malignant brain tumours alone accounted for more than nine percent of all deaths among children aged one to fourteen from any cause.
Behind these numbers are children whose lives have barely begun, parents forced to make impossible choices, and families carrying lifelong consequences long after treatment ends.
Understanding the Complexity of Paediatric Brain Tumours
Paediatric brain cancer is not a single disease. It is a complex collection of tumours, each defined by distinct biology, behaviour, and treatment responses.
While some children face encouraging prospects, those diagnosed with aggressive tumours encounter severely limited treatment options. Too often, families must rely on therapies developed decades ago: surgery where possible, followed by radiation and chemotherapy that can permanently damage a developing brain. Even when treatment successfully controls the cancer, children frequently face lifelong cognitive, physical, hormonal, and emotional challenges.
As Professor Hansford emphasised in his speech, every brain tumour patient deserves not just more years in life, but more life in their years.
Four Pillars for Future Progress
To fundamentally shift these outcomes, Australia must commit to sustained, long-term investment across four interconnected priorities articulated by Hansford in his speech:
Basic Research: Funding the foundational science that unpacks why these tumours arise, why they resist treatment, and how their biology can be precisely targeted.
Clinical Trials: Treating clinical trials as core healthcare infrastructure rather than an optional final step. Trials bridge scientific discovery and better care, providing vital options for children with rare and lethal cancers.
Treatment Infrastructure: Expanding specialist paediatric neuro-oncology centres, advanced molecular diagnostics, imaging, surgical capability, and access to proton radiation therapy.
Survivorship Care: Investing in lifelong support systems. Approximately 60% of childhood brain cancer survivors do not reach functional independence in adulthood. Research must focus on reducing treatment toxicity and building comprehensive follow-up care models.
A Shared Commitment to Action
The path forward demands a unified national effort. While government initiatives, such as the $20 million MRFF Paediatric Brain Cancer Research initiative, and the tireless philanthropic efforts of organisations like RUN DIPG have driven vital momentum, philanthropy alone cannot sustain this effort.
Australia’s families, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers share an extraordinary opportunity to lead the world in translating scientific discoveries into life-saving treatments.
When families hear an unthinkable diagnosis, they deserve endurance and equity, not just sympathy.
Details of the event
The purpose of the event was to bring federal politicians together with medical experts, cancer researchers, and affected families. It was designed to drive national policy changes and secure critical funding to develop effective treatments for aggressive childhood cancers.
Professor Jordan Hansford's Speech
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“But that progress has not been shared equally.
Brain cancer remains the most common cause of cancer death among Australian children. In 2024, malignant brain tumours alone accounted for more than nine per cent of all deaths among children aged one to fourteen, not simply cancer deaths, but deaths from every cause.
Behind that statistic are children whose lives have barely begun, parents confronted with impossible choices, and families living with consequences that continue long after treatment ends.
Paediatric brain cancer is not one disease. It is a complex collection of tumours, each with its own biology, behaviour and response to treatment. Some children now have encouraging prospects. For others, particularly those diagnosed with aggressive tumours, the available treatments remain devastatingly limited and devastating in general.
Too often, families must accept therapies developed decades ago: surgery where surgery is possible, followed by radiation or chemotherapy that can damage a developing brain. Even when treatment controls the cancer, it may leave a child with lasting cognitive, physical, hormonal or emotional difficulties.
This is why we must hold firmly to a simple but powerful principle: “Every brain tumour patient deserves not just more years in life, but more life in their years.”
That principle should guide our investment across four connected priorities: basic research, clinical trials, essential treatment infrastructure and survivorship.
First, we must support the basic research that allows us to understand why these tumours arise, why some resist treatment and how their unique biology can be targeted. Without this foundational science, there can be no new diagnostics, no new drugs and no safer treatments. Breakthroughs cannot be scheduled, which is why researchers need sustained funding and the freedom to pursue difficult questions over the long term.
Second, we must turn discoveries into treatments through well-designed clinical trials. Trials are not an optional final step. They are the bridge between scientific promise and better care. For children with cancers that have few established treatments, a clinical trial may also represent the most promising option available. They truly are our standard of care in children. They are core business and sustained infrastructure funding for our units and the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group need sustained funding to perform the work they do.
Paediatric brain cancers are rare, and individual tumour types are rarer still. No hospital, institution or country can solve this challenge alone. Australia must remain connected to national and international trial networks, share data and biological samples responsibly, and ensure our researchers can collaborate at scale. Funding of these core activities is essential to our ongoing participation in global trials.
Third, research funding must be matched by investment in the infrastructure needed to deliver modern, precise and less harmful treatment. This includes specialist paediatric neuro oncology centres, advanced molecular diagnostics, imaging and surgical capability, clinical trial facilities, and access to proton radiation therapy for children when clinically appropriate.
Finally, we must invest in survivorship. Survival is not the end of a child’s cancer journey. Survivors may need lifelong support for the effects of the tumour and its treatment, support with learning, mobility, communication, mental health, endocrine function and participation in school and community life. It is sad that approximately 60% of our survivors never reach functional independence in adulthood. They don’t carry on jobs, get married and have kids.
Research must help us understand these late effects, reduce the toxicity of treatment and build evidence-based models of follow-up care. We need to rethink our measures of success not only by whether a child survives, but by how well that child is able to live.
Today, I ask us to commit to sustained, long-term investment across this entire pathway: from the laboratory, through clinical trials and advanced treatment, and into lifelong survivorship care.
That means strengthening Australia’s research workforce, molecular testing, data platforms and international partnerships. It means investing in clinical-trial and treatment infrastructure, including proton radiation therapy. And it means embedding equity into every decision, so that regional and remote people have a fair opportunity to benefit from progress.
Investment in paediatric brain cancer research is not a wager on an uncertain future. We already know that sustained research changes outcomes. The advances achieved in other childhood cancers demonstrate what is possible when scientific ambition is matched by consistent public commitment.
The children and families affected by brain cancer are not asking us for sympathy alone. They are asking for urgency, endurance and hope grounded in action.
Let us ensure that Australia’s commitment does not fade between breakthroughs. Let us support the basic science that creates possibilities, the clinical trials that turn possibilities into treatments, the infrastructure that delivers those treatments safely and equitably, and the survivorship research and services that put more life into every child’s years.
Thank you.”
“Parliamentary Friends, colleagues, researchers, clinicians, advocates—and, most importantly, the children and families who bring such purpose to our work—thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
Australia has made extraordinary progress against many childhood cancers. Decades of sustained research and participation in clinical trials have transformed diagnoses that were once almost universally fatal into diseases that many children now survive. “
