Problems of Children’s Tumours in Britain

Abstract

With the steady improvement in the prevention and treatment of bacterial diseases during the past 30 years, their importance as a cause of death in children has greatly diminished. During the same period the practical benefits resulting from cancer research have not been so striking and consequently neoplasms have assumed a relatively greater importance in paediatrics. In 1964 they were the second commonest cause of death between the ages of one and 15 years in both England and Wales (Registrar General) and in the United States of America (U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare), being exceeded only by accidents (Table 1).