LONDON, Jan 14: Eighty per cent of children with cancer worldwide die of the illness because lifesaving treatments are not available in poor countries, cancer experts said on Monday.

They estimate that more than 100,000 lives could be saved each year if existing treatments were available in the developing world. Of the 250,000 children who develop the disease each year, four out of five are either not diagnosed or do not get life-saving treatment available in industrialized countries.

But two leading British medical charities, the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), say relatively simple treatments could save lives.

“Treatment for children’s cancers don’t have to be expensive — good results can be achieved with simple and relatively cheap techniques if the right expertise is available,” said Professor Vaskar Saha, the head of the ICRF’s Children’s Cancer Group.

TREATING INFECTIONS: Saha told a news conference on the eve of the first International Childhood Cancer Day on Tuesday that providing support and funding, setting up training programmes and treating common infections linked to cancer in the developing world is essential.

“A lot can be done but a lot of effort is required from big organizations like ours and from government organizations and pharmaceutical companies, for example, to decrease the cost of drugs in these countries,” he added.

Geoff Thaxter, of the ICCPO, a global association with groups in 43 countries that was founded to improve the situation, said only 20 per cent of childhood cancer patients get sufficient treatment.

“We have over 100,000 children in the world that die when the deaths are preventable if they only they had access to the treatments we have in the West,” he said.

The ICRF and CRC said two out of three children survive after developing cancer in industrialized nations, where leukaemia and brain and spinal cord tumours are the most common cancers.—Reuters