Leukaemia - the facts

LEUKAEMIA IS THE MOST COMMON CHILDHOOD CANCER with around 500 cases diagnosed each year, accounting for one third of all childhood cancers*. Children under five account for half of all cases of childhood leukaemia (54%)**.

ON AVERAGE, INCIDENCE OF LEUKAEMIA INCREASES 1.4% per year in Europe (ALL only)***. Over the past 25 years incidence in the under ones age group increased by more than 33% and in the 1 – 4 age group incidence increased by around 20%**.

CHILDREN AGED 1 - 4 ARE AT HIGHER RISK of developing leukaemia. The risk of leukaemia rises sharply after birth, peaks around the third or fourth year and then declines.

ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKAEMIA (ALL) is the most common form of leukaemia in children, accounting for 85 per cent of cases. The remaining cases are almost all ACUTE MYELOID LEUKAEMIA (AML).

FIFTY YEARS AGO a diagnosis of leukaemia was tantamount to a death sentence for a child. It was rapidly fatal in more than 95% of cases. Thanks to remarkable advances in treatment, four out of five children diagnosed with leukaemia now survive****.

THE CAUSES of childhood leukaemia are not well understood. It is thought most cases of leukaemia are caused by a two-stage process, with the first stage taking place whilst the child is still in the womb. The second stage takes place after the child is born.

Either or both of these stages may be triggered by environmental risk factors. Ionising radiation is the only established cause of childhood leukaemia, but this is not the cause in the majority of cases. Many other factors have been associated with the development of the disease (including electric and magnetic fields, air pollution and infections) but these remain controversial.

* Office for National Statistics – Childhood Cancer – survival rates improving, 22 December 2003
** ONS Childhood Trends
*** Steliarova-Foucher et al, 2005
**** Using data from Health Statistics Quarterly, Office for National Statistics (latest figures)

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