• Cancer remains the number one disease that claims the lives of our children. Each year cancer kills more children under the age of 20 than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and AIDS combined.
• Each year in the U.S., approximately 12,500 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer. That’s the equivalent of two average size classrooms diagnosed each school day.
• Today, nearly 80 percent of children diagnosed with cancer become long-term survivors and the majority of them are considered cured. In the early 1950s, less than 10 percent of childhood cancer patients could be cured.
• Leukemias, tumors of the brain and nervous system, the lymphatic system, kidneys, bones and muscles are the most common childhood cancers.
• In the U.S., cancer remains responsible for more deaths from one year through adolescence than any other disease; more deaths than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and AIDS combined.
• Combined, the cancers of children, adolescents and young adults to age 20 are the sixth most common cancer in the U.S.
• Breakthroughs in pediatric oncology will undoubtedly continue to progress the diagnosis and treatment of adult cancers. Many of the principles in therapy used today in treating adults were first developed and tested for children.

Portraits by Pepito Masterpiece Portraits
All facts compiled from Cure Search and the National Childhood Cancer Foundation.