Science / Medicine : Cancer Survival Rate Rises

Survival rates for a common type of childhood cancer improved markedly at a leading medical center after doctors started using chemotherapy more aggressively, a study showed last week.

In findings presented at the Society for Pediatric Research’s annual meeting, Dr. Laura Bowman of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., said the overall four-year survival rate for neuroblastoma has improved from 37% to 55% during the last decade.

Neuroblastoma, which originates in the adrenal gland or nerve tissue near the spinal cord, is the most common childhood solid tumor after brain tumors, Bowman noted. If the cancer is not caught in its early stages, it often spreads to the lymph nodes, liver, bone and bone marrow.

In the past, doctors sometimes have been reluctant to rush childhood cancer patients into chemotherapy because of possible toxic side effects. But about 10 years ago, St. Jude doctors started using several “front line” chemotherapy drugs on neuroblastoma patients as soon as possible, Bowman said.

Since that time, the four-year survival rate for children younger than 1 year old--whose disease is often not as advanced as in older youngsters--has climbed from 48% to 89%, the doctor said.