A new report from Statistics Canada has found that childhood cancer mortality is decreasing, but the incidence of cancer is slowly increasing.
The report, released Tuesday, covers cancer incidence and mortality among Canadian youth under the age of 15 from 1992 to 2010.
It found that between 1992 to 2010, the age-standardized rate of childhood cancer death decreased by an average of 2 per cent per year. In the same time period, the age-standardized incidence rate increased by an average of 0.4 per cent annually.
Other findings include:
- In each year from 2006 to 2010, an average of 905 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in children under the age of 15. An average of 129 children died from cancer annually.
- Leukemias are the most commonly diagnosed cancer among children, making up just under one-third of all childhood cancer cases from 2006 to 2010. Cancers of the central nervous system were the second most commonly diagnosed, making up 19 per cent of cases, and lymphomas were the third most commonly diagnosed at 11 per cent.
- The rate of newly diagnosed cancer cases was 10 per cent higher for boys than for girls from 2006 to 2010. The rate for lymphoma was 80 per cent higher among boys than girls, and the rate of leukemia was 18 per cent higher among boys than girls.
- From 2006 to 2010, cancer was diagnosed at nearly twice the rate for children younger than five, compared to children between five and 14 years old.
- Some cancers were diagnosed more frequently in certain age groups than others. For example, leukemia and central nervous system tumours were most likely to be diagnosed in children from one to four years old, and least likely to be diagnosed in kids from 10 to 14 years of age. By comparison, incidence rates of lymphoma increased with age.
The report was based on information from the Canadian Cancer Registry and Statistics Canada's own death database, the agency said.
