NEWS RELEASES
World Cancer Day calls attention to childhood cancer

HOUSTON (Feb. 1, 2006) – February 4, 2006 has been declared World Cancer Day by the Union Internationale Contre le Cancer/International Union Against Cancer (UICC). Traditionally a day to call awareness to adult cancers, this year’s World Cancer Day is highlighting childhood cancer – the leading cause of non-accidental death among children. 

Did you know that ...

• More children die each year from pediatric cancer than from asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital abnormalities and AIDS combined.
• Nine children die from cancer every school day.
• In 1960, the overall survival rate for children with cancer was only 10 percent.  And that today more than 70 percent survive.
• By age 20, one in every 300 children or adolescents is diagnosed with cancer.
  In the last 50 years, more children have died from cancer than U.S. soldiers in all military actions combined.
• Leukemia is the most common type of cancer among children under the age of 15.
  Infants as young as two days old can develop cancer.

Dr. ZoAnn Dreyer, chief of the Long-Term Survivor Program at Texas Children’s Cancer Center®, the largest pediatric oncology and hematology center in the nation, can address the progress made in the field of pediatric cancer, the present trends associated with the disease and what can be expected in the future.

About Dr. Dreyer
Dreyer is a pediatric hematology/oncology specialist at Texas Children’s Cancer Center and Hematology Service in Houston, Texas. She also is an associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.

In addition to treating patients and training young doctors, Dreyer acts as chief of Texas Children’s Long-Term Survivor Program, which studies the after-effects of cancer and hematology therapies for more than 1000 patients annually.

Dreyer also has an interest in studying acute lymphoid leukemia in infants younger than one year of age. She serves as the principal investigator for an innovative, nationwide treatment protocol that has increased survival rates for this population by more than 50 percent.

Dreyer has lectured worldwide on a variety of topics relating to pediatric cancer and blood disorders. Active in community organizations, Dreyer serves on The Periwinkle Foundation board of trustees, the Ronald McDonald House advisory board, as a physician associate to Mothers Against Cancer; a board member of The Make-A-Wish Foundation, Gulf Coast Division; and  former president of the Gulf Coast Hematology Society.  She is the Medical Director for Camp Periwinkle, a camp for children and their siblings diagnosed with childhood cancer.  She is also Medical Director for The Ronald McDonald House of Houston.

Formerly the host and medical reporter for Baylor College of Medicine’s TV Healthline, a series of eight medical news stories produced and distributed nationally and internationally, Dreyer is media-savvy and has been featured in numerous print and broadcast outlets.

Dreyer earned her bachelor’s degree and medical degree from the University of California, Davis, Calif. She served her internship, residency and postdoctoral fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine, one of the nation’s leading medical schools.