Project L.I.L.A

Let Inspiration Live with Amaya 

What Is Cancer?

Cancer is actually a group of many related diseases that all have to do with cells. Cells are the very small units that make up all living things, including the human body. There are billions of cells in each person's body.

Cancer happens when cells that are not normal grow and spread very fast. Normal body cells grow and divide and know to stop growing. Over time, they also die. Unlike these normal cells, cancer cells just continue to grow and divide out of control and don't die when they're supposed to.

 

Child Cancer Statistics:

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children between infancy and age 15. Approximately 12,730 new cases of pediatric cancer are expected to be diagnosed in children 0–14 years of age in 2009. Among the major types of childhood cancers, leukemias (blood cell cancers) and brain and other central nervous system (CNS) tumors account for more than half of new cases. White children are more likely than children from any other ethnic group to develop cancer. 

Although the incidence of invasive cancer in children has increased slightly over the past 30 years, mortality has declined dramatically for many childhood cancers. The combined 5-year survival rate for all childhood cancers has improved from less than 50 percent before the 1970s to 80 percent today, and the 10-year survival rate is almost 75 percent. Each year, about one out of every 15,000 children gets cancer. In 1998, about 12,400 U.S. children under 20 were found to have cancer. That same year, 2,500 children died from the disease.

 

Is childhood cancer increasing?

It is clear that childhood cancer increased significantly from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, rising about 1 percent each year during those two decades. Since the 1990s, rates of childhood cancer seem to have leveled off, but there is no evidence of a decline back to pre-1980 rates. The reason for the dramatic increase in childhood cancers during the seventies and eighties is still unclear. But many researchers feel that genetic factors and improved diagnosis fail to explain it, making environmental factors the most likely cause.

 

How we can help:

We will donate all proceeds to a Children's Cancer Research Center. A percentage of the L.I.L.A Signature suits will be donated to the fund. I have also experienced the loss of loved ones due to cancer and strive to help find a cure. It is a disease that affects so many of us, and I feel it is my job to assist in any way I can to reduce the number of deaths in children and increase the life cycle.  The children are the future and it is up to us to make a change.