Survival rate of pediatric cancer patients improves in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: The Department of Pediatric Surgery at Institute of Child Health (ICH) and Hospital for Children honoured the pediatric cancer survivors as part of Cancer Awareness Week on Tuesday.

Pediatrics suffering from various typed of cancer including hepatoblastoma, soft tissue tumors, renal tumors, germ cell tumors, neonatal tumors, ovarian tumors and testicular tumors are treated at ICH. The hospital has a separate chemotherapy ward at the hospital to provide radiation and chemotherapy of solid organ malignancy.

Raman was born with lymphoma which is a type of cancer that begins in infection-fighting cells of the immune system, called lymphocytes. A team of surgeons at ICH operated on the abnormal growth of the lymphocytes in the patient. The early detection of cancer and timely treatment helped Raman to return to normalcy, who is now a healthy 22-year-old youth now.

In another incident, Krithika was born with a cancer in the kidney and an immediate surgery was performed on her to remove the kidney. The child underwent surgery five years back and is now recovered completely from cancer.

“It is not only Raman and Krithika, but more than 350 pediatrics who get operated for cancer every year at ICH and recover well for lifetime. However, in case of late detection of cancer when it had reached stage 3 or above, there are around 7-8 deaths,” said Dr Mohan Kumar, pediatric surgeon at ICH.

As per statistics, more than 80 cases of Wilms tumor are being treated at the hospital every year, the mortality has reduced from around five per cent to less than one per cent. 

Of around 110 cases of neuroblastoma being treated at ICH every year, the death rates have reduced considerably over the last five years from around five deaths to one death per year.

“We want to emphasize that we treat around 15,000 cases of cancer in pediatrics each year and we are able to cure them against the usual belief that cancer is not curable. If detected at an early stage, cancer can be completely cured and we want to spread this message. We honoured around 50 cancer survivors as part of Cancer Awareness Week,” added Dr Mohan.

A separate tumor board for pediatrics spearheads the treatment of malignancies of solid organs at the hospital. Various non-governmental organizations extend their helping hand in the management of cancer patients at the hospital.