Addressing Childhood Cancer in Low-Resource Countries: Current Challenges, Strategies, and Recommendations

Children and adolescents represent a small, but critically important, number of patients with cancer worldwide (14.1 million newly diagnosed adults versus 160,000 children annually). The life years saved when a child is cured of cancer are about 71 compared to 15 years for an adult in most high-income countries (HICs). In HICs, about 80% of children survive cancer. Unfortunately, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the survival rates are generally 50% or less. In these resource-limited settings, only 15%–37% of children and adolescents have access to cancer treatment, and most are diagnosed with advanced-stage disease, making cure impossible.