Leukemia Facts

This year, 4,250 Canadians will be diagnosed with leukemia, and 2,400 will die.

Approximately one in every 59 men and 85 women will develop leukemia in their lifetime.

Approximately one in every 93.8 men and 126 women will die from leukemia.

Leukemia is considered to have a poor prognosis, with a death to case ratio of less than 50%.

It is estimated that 37,000 potential years of life were lost to leukemia in 2003.

Leukemia remains the most common and deadly of all childhood cancers. Leukemia causes 25% of all childhood cancers and causes 20% of deaths due to childhood cancer.

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood leukemia, has a very good prognosis. Although few children survived leukemia 50 years ago, approximately 80% of Canadian children with ALL today are alive 5 years after diagnosis.

Childhood Acute Non-Lymphocytic Leukemia is more dangerous, with a 34% death to case ratio.

Leukemia continues to be the cause of death for more children than any other disease.

More advances have been made in the treatment of leukemia than in any other cancer.

Chemotherapy was first developed as a treatment for leukemia. Once it's effectiveness was proven, chemotherapy started to be used to treat other cancers.

Gleevec, a drug developed to treat CML, has taken the 5-year survival rate for this type of leukemia from just over 50% to 95%. The success of Gleevec has inspired researchers investigating other types of cancer to look for similar targeted therapies that have little impact on healthy cells and only work on killing the cancer cells.

 

Information from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada