The report is based on figures for children under 5 years old from the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 1950 to 2024. Here are two notes:
1. In the 1950s, the childhood cancer death rate for all malignant cancers, combined, was about 12 per 100,000 children. In 2024, that rate is around 2.
2. Leukemia has seen one of the greatest drops in death rates, falling from almost 6 per 100,000 children in the 1950s down to less than 1 in 2024. This is compared to brain and nervous system cancers which saw a decline from roughly 0.8 per 100,000 children in 1980 to slightly over 0.4, in 2021, while lymphomas and multiple myeloma decreased from over 0.6 in 1950 to roughly 0.1.
