In our country, childhood tumors have become a serious problem that endangers children's health and welfare and social public health. Statistics show that about 30,000 to 40,000 children are diagnosed with tumors in our country every year, which means that on average, nearly a hundred new cases appear every day. In the past ten years, this number has been growing at an annual rate of 2.8%, and malignant tumors have become the second leading cause of death in children.
Since the general public knows very little about childhood tumors, parents often fall into panic and helplessness once they encounter tumors. Many families often seek medical treatment in a hurry or give up treatment early due to lack of confidence.
A little-known fact is that many children with childhood tumors have a chance of being cured. On November 20, at the public welfare theme salon "I Can Grow Up - Children's Tumor Technology Popularization Action", Professor Wang Huanmin of the Beijing Children's Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University introduced: "Due to the particularity of children's tumors, and in recent years, With the significant improvement in early diagnosis and standardized diagnosis and treatment, the overall survival rate of children with tumors can now reach more than 80%. Therefore, parents do not need to panic too much. Children with tumors are not equal to terminal illnesses. With scientific and standardized active treatment, many patients can survive. Children have the opportunity to recover and grow up like other children."
"I Can Grow Up" Children's Cancer Public Welfare Theme Exhibition
Children's Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine Dr. Wang Jinhu pointed out that from the perspective of epidemiology . Consider that the peak number of childhood tumors is at 3 years old. There is an extreme lack of expressive ability at this age, and it is difficult to clearly express what makes you uncomfortable. In this case, it is difficult to diagnose and find out by asking the child. In addition, CT and MRI are also difficult to become a tool for early clinical screening and diagnosis. Now, the state, government, and Ministry of Science and Technology are all promoting relevant work as much as possible, hoping to find some tumor markers and carry out early screening in the field of tumors.
Secretary-General of Shenzhen Shiyu Children's Charity Foundation and initiator of the "Sunflower Children" charity project Li Zhizhong said that from an epidemiological point of view, the current data on children's tumors in China have not yet been released. In addition, many children are still underdiagnosed. Case. Overall, the total number of cases is about 30,000.
Wang Jinhu said that statistics from his hospital in 2016 showed that the number of cancer patients treated by the hospital in 2015 was equivalent to the total number of cancer patients in the ten years from 2002 to 2012. The big reason is that the diagnostic rate has improved. However, specific data must wait for a complete registration system before a more scientific interpretation can be made.
It is worth mentioning that currently and BeiGene have two drugs with indications for childhood tumors. Liu Yan, vice president of BeiGene, said frankly that as a commercial company, from a profit perspective, the introduction of such drugs is indeed not to make money. "There were a lot of internal discussions when this product was introduced. Later, from the perspective of the board of directors and management, they all felt that it could help children. They felt that it might bring a better future to children and even bring cure. So in the end, the company decided to introduce it to China." Regarding the acquisition of information on children's tumor treatment, Wang Jinhu pointed out that we often talked about science popularization, but the first target of science popularization should not be parents. But doctors at the grassroots level. If primary care doctors do not establish a basic concept of childhood tumors, it will be more difficult for many parents to obtain information, including treatment information, drug information, etc.
Li Zhizhong said: "Popular science education is one of the indispensable directions to improve the level of diagnosis and treatment of children's tumors in China." In recent years, Shenzhen Shiyu Children's Charity Foundation has been committed to the layout of information and branding, which is essentially to Let more people know about this.
In addition, regarding the current policies on childhood cancer, Li Zhizhong said that the policy’s help to pharmaceutical companies is directional. How to improve the efficiency of corporate research and development of new pediatric cancer drugs and reduce costs and time still requires joint efforts to explore.
