There is nothing that pulls at my heart strings more than the sight of a young child dealing with a diagnosis of cancer. This issue of Conquering the Cancer Care Continuum™ focuses on pediatric cancer care, a challenging area of oncology management, but one in which amazing progress is being made.

The birth of the pediatric hematology/oncology specialty can be traced back to the early part of the 20th century, when pediatricians began describing hematologic abnormalities in infants and children.

As a practitioner in adult oncology, it is only on rare occasions that I see pediatric patients managed in our clinic. Generally speaking, such patients seen in this setting are mid-adolescents with diagnoses of Hodgkin lymphoma who are being treated with a standard adult regimen.

Cure rates for children with cancer now exceed 80% in high-income countries (HIC), but several challenges remain.