Research by the Cancer Research Campaign predicts that around 60,000 youngsters will have been successfully treated for childhood cancer by the mid-point of the next century.

Dr Mike Hawkins from the Cancer Research Campaign

The report was issued on Monday to tie in with the launch of a nationwide study by the CRC into the health of people who had childhood cancer and survived.

Advances in treatment over the last 30 years mean that more than six out of 10 children are now successfully treated for cancer.

However, CRC Director General Professor Gordon McVie is warning that further success will not come without controversy.

He said: "We have to look at the long-term effects of drug treatments on children and the contentious issue of testing news ones on poorly kids.

"It is the only way we can make the quantum leap to 100 per cent cure."

The new study, to be called the British Childhood Cancer Survivors Study, will look at how many long-term survivors go on to develop another cancer or any other health problems later in life.

The researchers, led by Dr Mike Hawkins from Birmingham University, will study 16,000 people in the UK who were diagnosed with cancer as children between 1940 and 1991, and who are still alive.

The team will look at the survivors' chances of developing health problems according to the types of anti-cancer treatment they received and at the risks of health problems developing in their children.

Dr Hawkins said: "We hope to provide, for the first time, reliable and unbiased information on a comprehensive scale about whether childhood cancer or its treatment causes health problems later on.

"There have been big advances in treatment, especially chemotherapy, over the last 30 years and we want to make sure that these modern techniques do not have long-term side effects for the patients."

Inherited risk

Professor Gordon McVie says the road ahead will be tough

The team will look at family histories to see how far the risk of childhood cancer is inherited.

The long-tem monitoring will also document any late effects of treatment such as fertility problems or heart disease and whether survivors are more likely to take up smoking compared to the general population.

Dr Mike Stevens, Chairman of the UK Children's Cancer Study Group which coordinates the care of over 80% of children with cancer, said: "Improving ways of treating children with cancer is one of the toughest research agendas.

"One of the the problems has been a traditional unwillingness to undertake studies into new drugs in young children.

"This is because doctors are keen to minimise distress to children who are often in advanced stages of the disease when new treatment is considered."

Dr Stevens said the aim was to find drugs that did not put children at long term risk. To do this the UKCCSG is expanding its programme of drug trials.