New global report by IARC highlights urgent need for stronger childhood cancer surveillance

IARC’s latest global report, developed with support from UICC, reveals major disparities in childhood cancer data—especially in low- and middle-income countries—and calls for strengthened cancer registries to improve care and guide national policies.

Remarkable gains in childhood cancer survival have been achieved in many parts of the world, yet progress remains deeply uneven. With contributions from 308 registries across 82 countries, a new global report released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), International Incidence of Childhood Cancer (IICC-3), offers the most comprehensive data to date on childhood cancer incidence, and reinforces the urgent need for equitable access to care and reliable data systems worldwide.

For UICC, the release of the report represents an important milestone in ongoing efforts to improve data availability and visibility for childhood cancer.

While survival rates now exceed 80% in many high-income countries, children in low- and middle-income countries often face late diagnoses, lack access to essential medicines, and encounter health systems unequipped for complex cancer care. This results in lower rates of survival and a poorer quality of life for many.

There has been progress in recent years, with the World Health Organization’s Global Childhood Cancer Initiative, launched in 2018, aiming to save 1 million lives by 2030, and ensure that every child has the chance not only to survive cancer but to live a full, pain-free life.

The IICC-3 is intended to provide governments and cancer organisations with the means to better understand and design effective responses to the burden of childhood cancer in their countries.

“UICC is proud to have supported this publication. At UICC we are encouraged by the response from governments, international organisations, civil society, and the private sector to join WHO in meeting these goals to support children and their families and caregivers around the world. With the wealth of data available in this report, we, as a global community, are better equipped to improve the survival and quality of life for children with cancer.”
– Ulrika Årehed Kågström, President of UICC, in the foreword to the publication.

The new report extends population coverage compared to previous editions and includes adolescents aged 15-19 for the first time, expanding on previous age groupings that focused solely on children aged 0-14.

The data offer insights into incidence patterns by cancer type, sex, age, and region, and provide a crucial evidence base to guide national and global cancer control policies.

Reliable, population-based data enable governments, health authorities, and civil society to identify disparities in access and outcomes, informing national cancer control plans and decisions around the inclusion of childhood cancer care in universal health coverage schemes.

Covering data from nearly two decades, from the 1990s to the 2010s, the report reveals wide differences in the recorded incidence of childhood cancer between regions. These differences are often driven by unequal access to comprehensive, population-based cancer registries.

The report draws attention to the importance of consistent, high-quality data to enable effective planning and evaluation of childhood cancer control strategies, from early detection and treatment to palliative care.

As childhood cancers are relatively rare and biologically distinct from adult cancers, specialised registries are needed to collect and code data according to childhood-specific classifications. IICC-3 addresses this need, and according to its authors, sets the benchmark for international comparability of incidence data.

“Many countries are now including childhood cancer services in universal health coverage plans, adopting paid leave policies to support caregiving parents, and improving access to high-quality medicines and devices. These are encouraging advances that reflect a shift from fragmented efforts to more coherent national strategies. But to sustain and scale these efforts, we must continue investing in robust, population-based cancer registries. This publication is a key step forward in building the evidence needed to ensure that no child is left behind.”
– Dr Sonali Johnson, Head of Knowledge, Advocacy, and Policy at UICC

IICC-3 eflects strong collaboration between IARC, the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR), and the Targeting Childhood Cancer through the Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (ChildGICR) programme, jointly led by IARC and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The IICC-3 report is freely available online from IARC, and provides a valuable tool to researchers, policymakers, and advocates working to improve survival and quality of life for children with cancer around the world.

Download the report, International Incidence of Childhood Cancer (IICC-3)