Photo by Bill Branson
Brain cancer has overtaken leukemia to become the deadliest childhood cancer in the US, according to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The report includes cancer mortality statistics from 1999 to 2014 pertaining to children and adolescents (ages 1 to 19).
In both 1999 and 2014, more than half of all cancer deaths in this population were attributable to leukemias or brain cancers.
In 1999, a greater percentage of deaths were attributed to leukemias than to brain cancers—29.7% and 23.7%, respectively.
But in 2014, brain cancer deaths exceeded leukemia deaths—29.9% and 24.9%, respectively.
The data also showed that, overall, cancer mortality has decreased among children and adolescents in the US.
The cancer death rate was 20% lower in 2014 than in 1999—2.28 deaths per 100,000 persons and 2.85 deaths per 100,000 persons, respectively.
Cancer death rates declined from 1999 to 2014 for all of the age groups studied (divided by 5-year increments) and for both sexes. However, cancer death rates were consistently higher for males than females.
In 2014, 54.8% of cancer deaths among children and adolescents were attributable to either leukemias or brain cancers.
The 2014 death rates by cancer site, from most common to least, were as follows:
- Brain cancers (29.9%)
- Leukemias (24.9%)
- Bone and articular cartilage cancers (10.1%)
- Cancers of the thyroid and other endocrine glands (9.0%)
- Mesothelial and soft tissue cancers (7.7%)
- Non-Hodgkin lymphomas (3.9%)
- Cancers of the liver and intrahepatic bile ducts (2.0%)
- Cancers of the kidney and renal pelvis (1.8%).
Data on the remaining cancer sites were not shown separately.
For more information, see the full report, “Declines in Cancer Death Rates Among Children and Adolescents in the United States, 1999–2014.”
