The 2026 Childhood Cancer Report
From diagnosis to research: measuring momentum in the search for cures
The Data
In 2019, a team of researchers collaborated on a study that modeled the global burden of childhood cancer in disability adjusted life-years (DALYs).2 DALYs are a way to measure the overall burden of disease—not just the deaths and survival rates. They are a way to measure the potential years lost when a person dies in childhood and also to measure the potential years of life impacted by disease. The study’s findings were profound—in the sample year (2017), 11.5 million healthy years were lost to childhood cancer. It is a number too big to fathom—over one hundred centuries of potential gone in just one year.
Yet, by the annual diagnosis numbers, childhood cancer is rare. In any given year, approximately 2 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer3 and less than 15,000 of those diagnosed are children.4 Globally, approximately 400,000 children develop cancer each year, but that number is most likely a low estimate—there isn’t a global way of counting childhood cancer diagnoses and many low- to middle-income countries lack a centralized registry.
The disparity between the healthy years of life lost and the total cases of childhood cancer are why tracking and analyzing childhood cancer data is so critical. The numbers tell a story of persistent challenges, continued progress, and the urgent need for more research. This section presents the most current data on incidence, survival, and outcomes for children with cancer, primarily in the United States. It also contains some explanations of how this data is collected—and where more data is needed.