Best Post of October 2016: Brain Cancer Surpasses Leukemia as #1 Pediatric Cancer Killer

The next in our "Best of the Month" series comes from October 18, 2016:

The following post appeared on the Johns Hopkins Neuropathology Blog last month. The author is Andrew Black:

New data from the CDC shows the mortality rates for pediatric cancers is in decline. A study published by the CDC found that during 1999–2014, the cancer death rate for patients aged 1–19 years in the United States dropped 20%. What is also changing are the type of patients dying. In 1999, leukemia was the leading killer of childhood cancer. That has been replaced by brain cancer. Numerous other trends were also observed in the study.

In both 1999 and 2014, more than one ­half of all cancer deaths among children and adolescents 1­-19 years old were attributable to either leukemia or brain cancer. 3 out of 10 cancer deaths among children and adolescents aged 1–19 years in 1999 were due to leukemia (29.7%), and 1 in 4 were due to brain cancer (23.7%). By 2014, these percentages reversed and brain cancer was the most common site, accounting for 29.9% of total cancer deaths.