Conditions & Treatments
- A to Z Guide

Cancer

Disease Information

Overview

We lace 'em up every morning knowing that in some significant way we will have made a stride toward the common mission: decreasing the burden of cancer.

Stephen Sallan, MD

Video from our experts:

While childhood cancer is a potentially life-threatening condition requiring intensive treatment, the majority of pediatric cancers are treatable. And thanks to recent advances in therapies, many forms of childhood cancer are curable using a combination of treatments, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

In general, childhood cancers are very rare compared to adult cancers.
Children generally get different forms of cancer than adults.
About 10,000 to 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States (compared to about 1.5 million adults).
The most common forms of pediatric cancer are leukemia, brain tumors and lymphoma.
In almost all cases, the cause of childhood cancer is unknown.
Compared with cancer in adults, many pediatric cancers are more successfully treated.

How Children’s Hospital Boston approaches childhood cancer

Your child’s core care team will include pediatric oncologists, radiotherapists, surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, nurses and psychosocial and physical therapy specialists, among many others.
Our cancer team, ranked one of the top in the country by U.S. News & World Report, treats children with every kind of cancer and blood disease, from the most common to the rarest.
We are New England’s Phase I referral center for the Children’s Oncology Group, so we offer clinical trials of investigational drugs unavailable at other regional centers.
We provide long-term treatment and childhood cancer survivor support through Dana-Farber’s David B. Perini, Jr. Quality of Life Clinic.

Read more about our center.

A long history of cancer care
Treatment for children with cancer began here. More than 60 years ago, Sidney Farber, MD, a Children’s pathologist, founded the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, the first pediatric cancer program in Boston. He refused to accept that childhood cancer was untreatable and his determination led to the development of chemotherapy and the first remissions of childhood leukemia

The New Normal
With quality of life always a priority, the oncology team at Children's and Dana-Farber knew there must be something they could do to minimize hospital stays. The solution they developed was a mobile hydration system. Learn more about this family-centered treatment.

Reviewed by Stephen Sallan, MD
© Children’s Hospital Boston, 2010