Cure for cancers afflicting children have witnessed an improvement by around 70 percent, experts said at a seminar on childhood cancer here Thursday.

“The solid tumours in children require meticulous treatment with facilities of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy to achieve high cure rates. Through these steps, the cure rates have gone up to 70-80 percent,” said Anish Maru, senior consultant, medical oncology at the Dharamshila Hospital.

Over 40,000 cases of childhood cancers are reported in the country every year. The common cancers among children are acute lymphoblastic leukemia or blood cancer, germ cell tumour, brain tumour and liver and kidney cancer, among others.
“We need to take note of early symptoms. You should not ignore the early signs for an early diagnosis,” said cancer specialist Meenu Walia.

Experts insist that preventive checkups should be mandatory in the country so that cancer can be detected at an early stage and can be cured.

The doctors urged to spread awareness about childhood cancers for timely detection and treatment as increasing prevalence of cancer among children is becoming a cause of great concern.