IARC marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2025

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is marking Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 2025. IARC works with partners around the world to understand, measure, and prevent childhood cancer.

The cancer types that occur most often in children are different from the cancer types that occur mainly in adults. The most recent IARC estimate suggests that more than 275 000 new cases of cancer occur in children and adolescents (aged 0–19 years) per year. The most common cancer types in children are leukaemias, lymphomas, and central nervous system tumours.

Preventing cancer in children is difficult because the causes are not fully understood. IARC scientists are leading or involved in projects investigating methods to detect cancer in children earlier, to uncover exposures that may lead to cancer in children, to better record and understand the global burden of childhood cancer, and to determine the future health-care needs of survivors of childhood cancer, among other research areas.

Read more about the IARC Childhood Cancer Awareness and Research Evidence Team (CCARE)

Read more about IARC’s work on childhood cancer