Childhood cancer survival data set to improve in five years

The quality and quantity of information on childhood cancer survival in India is likely to get better over the next five years, Sameer Bakhshi, Professor and Head of the Department of Medical Oncology at AIIMS New Delhi, said on 24 October 2026. Bakhshi was speaking at the 10th Pediatric Haematology Oncology Support Services Conference, PHOSSCON 2026, in Mohali.

Bakhshi said three quarters of the information available today has come in the last ten years. "On a graph, if the information for the last three decades is treated as almost a flat line, it could shoot up sharply in the next five years," he said. His remarks were based on his AIIMS team's research that pulled together three decades of Indian childhood cancer survival evidence across 182 studies covering 22,886 children.

Childhood cancer survival evidence base took decades to build

The AIIMS New Delhi led review, published in JCO Global Oncology, screened 6,802 published articles up to December 2023 and included 182 studies from treatment centres across India. It was carried out with CanKids KidsCan and international collaborators including the World Health Organization and St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the United States. Bakhshi, the corresponding author, has described it as the first full synthesis of published childhood cancer survival evidence from India.

The pooled estimates varied widely by cancer type. Five year overall survival was estimated at 67.1% for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, 93.1% for Hodgkin lymphoma, 76.8% for retinoblastoma and 78.8% for Wilms tumour. Three year overall survival was estimated at 60.9% for acute myeloid leukaemia, 97% for chronic myeloid leukaemia, 56.9% for neuroblastoma and 60.3% for osteosarcoma. Median overall survival was reported at 43.9 months for medulloblastoma and 21.2 months for Ewing sarcoma.

Childhood cancer survival targets need better registries

Poonam Bagai, organising chair of all ten PHOSSCON editions and a co-author of the study, said the findings give policymakers the evidence needed to track progress towards the UNGA 80 resolution goal of more than 60% survival for children with cancer by 2030. She said the study should help policymakers identify gaps and strengthen accountability in India's fight against childhood cancer.

The two day conference, which began on 24 October at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Mohali, SAS Nagar, gave a platform for discussion of childhood cancer survival and the evidence needed to improve outcomes. Bakhshi said he hopes the work will support stronger cancer registries, multicentre collaborative research and standard outcome reporting, so India can measure progress more effectively.

India's stated 2030 goals, aligned with the UNGA 80 call, the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer and universal health coverage, are 100% access to care, 100% financial protection and at least 60% survival. Bakhshi's argument at PHOSSCON 2026 was that the data to judge those goals is only now catching up with the care itself, and the next five years should change that.

The childhood cancer data gap has practical effects. Without a survival baseline, Bagai has said, it is hard to measure progress, to identify where children are still being left behind, or to judge where treatment quality, supportive care, continuity of care and financial protection need strengthening. AIIMS New Delhi researchers hope the review will push centres towards standard reporting, so that childhood cancer data from different hospitals can be compared and the same child is not lost between counts. That is the work Bakhshi expects to fill the next five years of records. Better childhood cancer survival records also change what a hospital can learn from its own results, since childhood cancer survival figures only help when centres count cases the same way and share them.