The gold ribbon is the Childhood Cancer Awareness Month symbol and you’ll see it everywhere on the webpages and social media of children’s cancer charities and research organisations around the world. Many, like us, are running special events and activities. It’s a busy month.
For our blog, we’re sharing some facts about childhood cancer each week. This week’s Awareness Wednesday post is about all childhood cancers but in coming weeks we’ll focus on specific cancers like neuroblastoma and leukaemia and the research that is helping find a cure.
To kick-off, here are 5 sobering facts about childhood cancer:
- 950 Australian children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer each year
- Every week 3 Australian children die from cancer
- Some types of aggressive form of childhood cancers fail to respond to standard therapy and have limited treatment options
- Thanks to medical research, 8 out of 10 children Australian children today survive cancer
- 30% of childhood cancer survivors experience serious, chronic side effects from their treatment
These facts are captured in the infographic ‘Childhood cancer fast facts’ (pdf, 206KB) or you can read more information on our website.
Next week’s post is about neuroblastoma, a cancer of specialised nerve cells that claims more lives of children under the age of 5 than any other cancer.
In the meantime, watch this video about Build for a Cure, one of our major events this month.
