Child cancer cases double at hospital
Some 15 per cent of new referrals to Sha Tin centre have mainland parents
New childhood cancer cases referred to the Prince of Wales Hospital have doubled since 2009, partly due to an uptick in the city's population.
Some 10 to 15 per cent of new cases are children born to mainland parents, while the rest are local, said Dr Li Chi-kong, chief of service in the hospital's paediatrics department.
The Sha Tin public hospital received 88 new cases last year, up from 53 in 2012 and 46 in 2009. More than half were cases of leukaemia or brain tumour.
Li, who also heads the hospital's Lady Pao Children's Cancer Centre, said the location of the Prince of Wales made it more convenient for mainland parents. But he reassured parents there were "adequate facilities for all local cases". The hospital handled 40 per cent of the city's 200 new child cancer cases last year.
A new children's hospital at Kai Tak, set to open in 2018, would centralise the city's paediatric oncology services and improve cost-effectiveness of treatments, Li said.
The hospital has managed to drive up the survival rate of child cancer patients from 70 per cent in 2003 to the current level of 80 per cent.
Employees at the city's largest paediatric oncology centre have won an award from the Hospital Authority to recognise this success.