Brain cancer has replaced leukemia as the most common cancer causing death among children and adolescents, according to a report published Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the CDC.
In 1999, three out of 10 cancer deaths among children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 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.
Overall, the report showed, the cancer death rate for children and adolescents age 1 to 19 declined 20 percent from 1999 to 2014.
In The Washington Post, Elizabeth Ward, senior vice president for intramural research at the American Cancer Society, attributed the decrease in deaths from leukemia to progress oncologists have made in developing effective chemotherapy treatments and finding the optimum ways to utilize radiation and bone-marrow transplants.
On the contrary, she said in the publication, "brain cancers are generally very hard to treat," partly because surgeons must be cautious not to damage healthy tissue.