 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study finds the survival rates for children with hematological cancers have improved over the past decades. The study breaks down the comparison in four-year segments to get a better picture of current trends.
Hematological malignancies are the types of cancers that affect blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. This study looked at the survival rates for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Researchers analyzed a five and ten year survival in patients under the age of fifteen.
Text Continues Below
The research compared survival rates from 1990-1994 with those from 2000-2004. Investigators found ALL patients had a five-year survival rate increase from 80 percent to 88 percent and the ten-year survival rate improved from 73 percent to 84 percent. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients saw five-year survival rates improve from 42 percent to 60 percent and ten-year rates go up from 39 percent to 60 percent. Finally, NHL patients saw five-year survival rates improve from 77 percent to 88 percent and ten-year survival rates improved from 73 percent to 87 percent.
Our period analysis revealed that survival after diagnosis with childhood hematologic malignancies has improved greatly over the past decade, write the authors.
Improvements in survival in childhood hematologic malignancies are most likely attributable to changes in how these diseases are treated.
SOURCE: Published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute on September 9, 2008
Sign up for a free weekly e-mail on Medical Breakthroughs called First to Know by clicking here.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
|
.gif)
