What is children's cancer?

Children's cancer is much less common than adult cancer. Get information on the most common types of children's cancers.

In the UK around 1,900 children (aged 0 - 14 years) get diagnosed with cancer each year. This number includes non cancerous (benign) brain tumours. Children develop different types of cancers than adults but they often have the same types of treatments.

What are the most common types of childhood cancer?

The most common types of childhood cancer are:

• acute leukaemias
• cancers of the brain and spinal cord

What are the rare types of children's cancer?

The other rarer types of children's cancers include:

• retinoblastoma (a type of eye cancer)
• neuroblastoma (a cancer of nerve cells)
• Wilms' tumours (a type of kidney cancer)
• muscle or bone cancers, such as osteosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and Ewing's sarcoma
• lymphoma (cancer that starts in the lymphatic system)

We have more detailed information about some cancer types that might affect children in the cancer types section. The information in those pages is mainly about adult cancer, rather than children's cancers. But much of the information about causes, diagnosis and treatment will be the same.

How often is childhood cancer cured?

In the 1960s about 20 to 30 out of every 100 children (20 to 30%) with cancer were successfully treated. But since then treatment for children with cancer has improved greatly.

Now more than 80 out of every 100 children (80%) diagnosed with cancer will live for at least 5 years or more. Most of these children will be cured. Hodgkin lymphoma and an eye cancer called retinoblastoma are curable in more than 95 out of 100 children (95%).

Even though cancer is not common in children, it is the leading cause of death from illness in children between the ages of 1 and 15. The second most common cause of death in children is accidents. 

The number of children dying from different types of cancers have gone down, but the amount of childhood deaths from cancer overall has gone up.

What are the symptoms of children's cancer?

Cancer symptoms can be very similar to those of other illnesses. And they vary between children. Remember, cancer in children is very rare.