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THE GOOD NEWS |
THE BAD NEWS |
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Childhood cancer has been called the "modern medical miracle"
because such remarkable progress has been made in curing infants,
children, teenagers, and young adults with cancer.
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Today, despite amazing research progress, cancer still kills
more children than any other disease. Each year cancer kills more
children between one and 20 years of age than asthma, diabetes,
cystic fibrosis, and AIDS, combined.
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Up to 75% of the children with cancer can now be cured.
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Every year, over 12,500 young people are diagnosed with cancer.
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Childhood leukemia was once a certain death sentence, but now
can be cured more than 80% of the time.
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Each year about 2,300 children and teenagers die from cancer.
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The cancer death rate has dropped more dramatically for
children than for any other age group. This progress is due to
research.
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Nationally, the incidence of cancer in children is over 15
times greater than that of AIDS in children.
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More than 400,000 patient-years of life are being saved each
year using newly-discovered treatments for childhood cancer.
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One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before age 20.
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Many of the principles of therapy used in treating adults with
cancer were first tested and developed in children.
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Some forms of childhood cancer have proven to be so resistant
that even in spite of the great research strides we've made, most of
those children die.
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The member-hospitals of the Children's Oncology Group (COG)
treat about 90% of the children with cancer in North America.
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The number of potential years of life put at risk by childhood
cancer each year exceeds the number for most adult cancers.
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