Current progress in the treatment of the child with cancer

Treatment for the child with cancer has increasingly been on a rational rather than an empiric basis. An understanding has developed of the importance for determining clinical and laboratory features present at diagnosis as an aid not only to establish a prognosis but also to design specific treatment regimens. A system has been developed for bringing new chemotherapeutic agents into clinical trials as effectively as possible. Through both clinical and laboratory studies, an increasing understanding of the biology of cancer is being developed. This understanding will provide the basis for more rational treatment programs in the future. Physicians of different specialty interests have learned to work together to develop coordinated programs of treatment so important to optimal care. By far the most important lesson learned, however, is that cancer in children is not of necessity a fatal disease, even when dissemination has occurred. For the furture, it will be necessary to develop even more effective methods of treatment, and research must provide a better understanding of this disease that may offer the opportunity for prevention, which, after all, is the number one interest of the pediatrician.