Survivorship

 The long term goal for childhood cancer is not just remission, but long term survivorship. That's what we all want, that these kids live long, fulfilled lives without cancer, where they aren't burdened by treatment, relapses, and side effects. My brother is a long term survivor now, almost 16 years in remission. He has minimal effects, but there's so much we won't know until it happens. Especially knowing that 95% of childhood cancer survivors will experience a significant long term effect by age 45 (x). This is 475,000 people in the US (out of the estimated 500,000 childhood cancer survivors).

Not only do we need better treatments for childhood cancer in terms of helping children achieve remission, but we need less toxic treatments. Treatments that cause less damage to surrounding tissue. Treatments that don't cause, by side effect or known effect, things like infertility, neuropathy, heart issues, secondary cancers, and more. We need better treatments and we need them now.