Childhood cancer: the success stories

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at the struggles that childhood cancer sufferers face, and the statistics that for some children are stacked against them.

There are however, some amazing success stories out there and we need to celebrate these as well. Research and progress have given these children a chance of a future. Children that go back to school and get to experience just being a child.

Despite the limitations we have looked at in previous blog pages, huge advances have been made in certain areas, we just need it to extend this to other less well researched areas too.

What progress has been made?

Leukaemia is an excellent example of the progress that has been made in certain areas of childhood cancer over the last 3 decades.

In the 1970's, only 10% of children with leukaemia survived 5 years.

Today, 90% are still alive 5 years after diagnosis. This really is an incredible step forwards.

It is not perfect, and children face very long and grueling treatments, but now there genuinely is hope at the end of treatment for some of these children.

Childhood leukaemia survival rates over the last 50 years.

It really does show the advances that can be made with funding and research, we now need this to extend to children with poorer prognoses too.

The mission of the Grace Kelly Ladybird Trust is to help work to translate these improvements into all children, including those with solid tumours, including rhabdoid tumours. As we know, these children, like Grace have much poorer survival rates, and our mission is to help give them a better chance of a childhood.

Please join our fight and raise awareness. As well as research, one of the other keys to success is diagnosing children as early as possible. If caught early, there is a much better chance of cure and reduced numbers of disabilities in survivors.

Drop us an email at contact@gracekellyladybird.co.uk to order some cards or help in any way. Don't forget, we also have a mailing list for our quarterly charity updates to help you keep track of all that has been happening with the charity.

You can sign up at

www.gracekellyladybird.co.uk/contact-us

(just scroll to the bottom of the page for the link).

Working towards our motto of, "because the children of today all deserve to have a tomorrow."