According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year an estimated 400,000 children and adolescents aged 0–19 are diagnosed with cancer. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death among children worldwide.
The chances of survival vary greatly depending on where a child lives. In high-income countries, more than 80% of children with cancer are cured thanks to timely diagnosis, advanced treatments, and access to essential medicines. In contrast, in many low- and middle-income countries, fewer than 30% survive. The gap is largely due to challenges such as late or incorrect diagnosis, limited access to modern therapies, and treatment abandonment.
Childhood Cancer in Russia
In Russia, around 4,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year, with nearly half of cases being leukaemias and lymphomas. The structure of childhood cancer differs greatly from adults: among children under 14, the most common types are leukaemia (about one third), brain and central nervous system tumours, lymphomas, soft tissue sarcomas, neuroblastoma, and Wilms tumour. In adolescents, lymphomas, brain tumours, leukaemia, germ cell tumours, thyroid cancer, and melanoma are more frequent.
Childhood cancers account for only around 1% of all cancer cases, yet survival rates can be encouraging. For some types, up to 80–90% of children survive when the disease is diagnosed early and treated promptly.
Financial Gap and Role of Charities
In Russia and many CIS countries, cancer treatment for children is supposed to be covered by state funding under set tariffs or reimbursement rates. However, many of these tariffs were established before recent advances in paediatric oncology and do not fully account for the costs of newer therapies, specialised infrastructure, or regional differences in costs. As a result, there is a persistent financial gap between what the state covers and what is required to deliver modern, high-quality care, and this gap is often filled by charitable foundations.
Another complication is that tariffs are often standardised across regions, federal centres in Moscow may have better infrastructure, higher overheads, more specialised equipment or facilities than regional hospitals, yet receive the same reimbursement per case. Medicines, specialist staff salaries, facility costs and operating expenses vary widely by region, and many hospitals in major cities must rely on donations to make up the shortfall and ensure that treatments – especially expensive or newer ones – can be provided.
Prognosis in Childhood Cancer
According to the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital (RDKB), overall survival rates for children with cancer in Russia are around 83–84%. Outcomes vary depending on the type of tumour and the stage at which it is diagnosed: for example, remission is achieved in up to 98% of children with lymphoma.
For thyroid cancer, survival is nearly 100%. Leukaemias are curable in more than 80% of cases, and for favourable types of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia survival reaches 90%. By comparison, in 1990 this figure was less than 15%, according to the statistics shared by medical specialists from the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital (RDKB) and the Dmitry Rogachev Centre.
The significant improvement in childhood cancer survival rates compared with the 1990s has been made possible not only through advances in diagnostics and the adoption of international treatment protocols, but also thanks to the sustained efforts of charitable organisations. Charities such as Gift of Life play a crucial role in providing children with complex and rare diagnoses with access to life-saving medicines and the most effective cancer therapies available.
Even in developed Western countries, cancer treatment cannot rely solely on state funding. The contribution of charitable foundations remains essential, in the United States, across Europe, and particularly in the CIS region, to ensure that every child has a real chance to survive and recover.
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