A review calling for research directed at early detection of childhood cancers: The clinical, scientific, and economic arguments for population screening and surveillance

Childhood cancers are increasingly recognised as disorders of tissue growth and development, through early life into adulthood. A rising proportion are currently considered to be related to a familial predisposition or associated with identified genetic mutations in predisposition genes. Their threat to life and risk of associated serious disability at diagnosis and need for complex life saving therapies makes them a research priority. Inadequate progress has been made in diagnosing childhood cancers earlier within global health systems, which means that their clinical presentations are either missed altogether or constitute high risk emergencies. Whilst knowledge of tumour biology has improved dramatically over the last decade due to the expansion in research technologies directed at innovative approaches to prognostication and treatment. A concerted research initiative to apply this knowledge to making the diagnosis of childhood cancers at earlier points in tumourgenesis has not developed. The risk for a child getting a cancer by the age of 5 is equivalent to the risks of the conditions selected as part of newborn population screening for rare inherited health conditions and is nearly 3 times that at age 18 years. We are proposing that research directed at accelerating cancer diagnosis for children by focussing upon feasibility and acceptability of linking targeted surveillance with population screening for all childhood cancers. This would be supported by enhanced public and professional awareness of a child’s risks of cancer and the range of clinical presentations. We suggest this must now be a top priority for research because of the potential for improving outcomes for treatment of all types of cancer and reducing the burden of disability and late effects of therapy.