SAN ANTONIO — Every 36 minutes an American child is diagnosed with cancer. While this is a terrifying disease, there is still plenty of hope. As we report in today's Healthy SA, more research is desperately needed to fight cancer, especially when it comes to kids whose lives are cut too short.
As treatment advances, close to nine out of every 10 children diagnosed with cancer survive five years or more. That is a big improvement from the 1970s when the survival rate was much lower at 58% but these numbers need to keep rising.
"My mom took me to a doctor because my energy was low. She thought I had strep throat," but soon after that appointment, 12-year-old Raynie Clark says her vitals crashed and she found out she had a potentially deadly disease.
"I was diagnosed with an acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This is a type of cancer in the blood and bone marrow," Clark said.
Some of the risk factors of childhood cancer are lifestyle related factors like smoking, obesity, diet and exercise. Environmental impacts like radiation exposure. Changes in DNA when cells grow which can be a cause of cancer. Inherited gene mutations instead of mutations acquired after birth.
Hyundai's non-profit "Hope On Wheels" program aims to help eliminate childhood cancer. Kevin Reilly from Hyundai Motors told KENS 5, "Because in doing so, we can put more funds in the hands of brilliant researchers who have a million different ideas as to how to solve pediatric cancers but just don't have the money to do so."
The American Childhood Cancer Organization says every year in the U.S. close to 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer. Those kids are between birth and 19-years-old. About 1-in-85 children in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer before their 20th birthday.
Clark has this message for kids going through something similar to what she is.
"It takes both sunshine and rain to make your rainbows. And what hope means to me is like it's that warm ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds after a rainstorm," she said.