Less children are dying from cancer, with mortality rates declining among all races and age groups, according to a new report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
From 1999 to 2014, the cancer death rate among 1- to 19-year-olds declined 20 percent, from 2.85 per 100,000 population to 2.28, according to the report.
All five-year age groups (1 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14 and 15 to 19) experienced declines in cancer death rates during that time period, with percentage declines ranging from 14 percent for 5- to 9-year-olds years to 26 percent for 1- to 4-year-olds. For 1999, 2006 and 2014, 15- to 19-year-olds had the highest cancer death rates of all age groups, although the rate dropped 22 percent between 1999 and 2014, according to the report.
Declines in cancer death rates from 1999 to 2014 were also experienced among both white and black 1- to 19-year-olds. The cancer death rate for white 1- to 19-year-olds dropped 17 percent from 1999 to 2014. For black 1- to 19-year-olds, the decline was 23 percent.
Additionally, the report showed, brain cancer has replaced leukemia as the most common cancer causing death among children and adolescents. In 1999, three out of 10 cancer deaths among 1- to 19-year-olds were due to leukemia (29.7 percent), while about one in four were due to brain cancer (23.7 percent), the report shows. By 2014, these trends reversed and brain cancer overtook leukemia as the most common cause of cancer-related death among this population, accounting for 29.9 percent of total cancer deaths.
Julia Glade Bender, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, attributed the decline in cancer death rates to lessons learned in clinical trials that had led to small changes in practice, according to The New York Times.
"Many hope for cancer breakthroughs, or cancer moonshots," she told the publication. "But it's a series of well-conceived trials where we've studied minor changes in standards of care which add up over decades to substantial gains in survival."
She also noted that physicians have improved at prognoses.