Is the risk of morbidity and rare mortality worth the cure?

Many more children with cancer are being cured, often as a result of aggressive treatment regimens. These employ several modalities and multiple chemotherapeutic agents. The acute complications resulting from this type of treatment are relatively well known. Those that develop later are becoming better understood; some are formidable. The challenge in pediatric oncology lies in developing better treatment strategies with a view to minimizing normal tissue damage while achieving higher cure rates. The cooperative clinical trial mechanism is well-suited to testing new treatment regimens designed to achieve these goals.