Child Cancer Smart

Childhood cancer is the commonest cause of death by disease for children in the UK, and many experience long delays to diagnosis. Delayed diagnosis can lead to worse survival for patients and poorer long-term health for survivors.

A review of existing evidence supports the need for us to better understand factors affecting the time it takes for a child or young person with cancer to be diagnosed. For example, children in the UK with a Wilms’ tumour, a type of childhood kidney cancer, have larger and more advanced tumours at diagnosis compared with children in other European countries. There are likely to be many reasons for this, with lack of awareness playing a key role.

HeadSmart, an evidence-based national awareness campaign led by the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre and the Brain Tumour Charity has halved diagnosis times for children with brain tumours in the UK. We now hope to replicate this success for all other cancers affecting children and young people.

Child Cancer Smart will help us to measure and understand the time it takes to diagnose children and young people with all cancers across the UK. The project will also start to address delays by developing high quality guidance on cancers in children and young people, and produce awareness tools for a national awareness campaign to promote earlier diagnosis.

The project has several strands, which together aim to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer in children, teenagers and young adults amongst both healthcare professionals and the general public. 

  • Major new research into what we currently know about the signs, symptoms, and diagnosis of children and young people’s cancers. These ‘systematic reviews’ will bring together all of the current high-quality information we have, to inform the rest of our work in this area.
  • The Child Cancer Diagnosis Study, an important new study that investigates the referral and diagnosis of children with cancer in the UK.
  • The development of resources for GPs, emergency medical practitioners, and other healthcare professionals, including clinical referral guidelines, e-learning modules, and decision making tools to help them understand what tests and scans might be needed to ensure a quick diagnosis
  • Signs and symptoms awareness campaigns that will help parents, schools and the general public know how to spot childhood cancer.

We’re in the process of publishing the first research results and guidelines from the Child Cancer Smart project, so check back for the latest updates.