Ninety percent of children diagnosed with cancer each year live in the poorest countries—the low- and middle-income countries where families earn less and have less access to critical medical infrastructure. 

And of those diagnosed, most will not survive. In higher income countries, where children are diagnosed with cancer at similar rates, more than 85% of children survive their cancer. 

One struggle for children in less affluent countries is the lack of medical centers with adequate staffing. In some low-to-middle income countries, one pediatric oncology nurse could have 30 children assigned to their care—30 children to medicate, comfort, and monitor for things like fever, which in a child with cancer is a medical emergency requiring prompt treatment. Compare this to the United Sates, where pediatric oncology nurses typically have an average of three children to care for. 

Delayed fever detection in children with immune systems weakened by cancer treatment can lead to poor outcomes and even death. One study found that 6% of childhood cancer deaths in Kenya were due to fevers detected too late.

No child with cancer should die from a fever. And one Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation-funded researcher, Dr. Nate Nessle, from the University of Michigan, is working to make sure this can be a reality. 

Dr. Nessle is using technology to ease the workload of staff and hopefully, ensure more children can get prompt treatment for fevers. He is evaluating the feasibility of wearable fever monitors that can predict when an infection will worsen an average of five hours earlier than a regular temperature check. His project could be a cost-effective game changer for kids in Kenya who are dying from infections that are easily and quickly treated in the United States.  

Dr. Nessle’s project not only offers hope, but it highlights one of the many inequities that exist for kids with cancer in countries with lower incomes and less medical infrastructure. Here are five more facts about childhood cancer around the world:

1.    Exact numbers of childhood cancer diagnoses around the world don’t exist because not every country has a robust childhood cancer registry. For example, in 2019 researchers estimated that approximately 429,000 children were expected to be diagnosed with cancer, based on standard incident rates, but only 265,000 were reported. 

2.    In high income countries, 85% of children survive their cancer. In the poorest countries, only 20% are cured, according to reported data. However, due to the known lack of comprehensive cancer registries, researchers estimate that the cure rate in the poorest countries could be as low as 10%

3.    Low- and middle-income countries lack access to the very things that are standard and routine in the United States. Common, effective chemotherapies are hard to access. Clinics and treatment centers are far away. Staff lack access to the best diagnostic tools and the training needed to use what they have. 

4.    Treatment abandonment occurs when a child misses four or more weeks of appointments and is a major contributor to treatment failure in low- and middle-income countries. In rural Zambia, a country that has faced war and natural disasters, abandonment rates approach 50%. Without treatment, cancer cures are impossible.

5.    However, the world is working to acknowledge and tackle these challenges. The Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, launched in 2018 by the World Health Organization and other global partners, aims to increase survival rate to least 60% by 2030. 

Learn more about the innovative, collaborative research that ALSF funds, here.