Better treatment of leukemia and other cancers has led to a 20 percent drop in the cancer death rate for children in the United States, health officials announced Thursday.

Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death for U.S. children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report. Better treatments are improving survival rates, the CDC said.

The cancer death rate for U.S. children was 34.2 per million for children up to age 19 in 1990, but fell to 27.3 per million in 2004, the CDC said. This death rate has declined 1.7 percent per year during this period, according to the CDC.

"It's not that we're having less cancer diagnosed. The incidence rates, the new-case rates are the same. It's just that we're getting better survival," the CDC's Dr. Lori Pollack said in a telephone interview.

There were 2,223 childhood cancer deaths in 2004, compared to 2,457 in 1990, the CDC said. The only greater causes of death for U.S. children were accidents, homicide and suicide.

The blood and bone marrow cancers known as leukemia caused about 26 percent of the 2004 cancer deaths, with brain and other nervous system tumors causing another 25 percent. Death rates from leukemia dropped more sharply than other cancers, by 3 percent per year from 1990 to 2004, the CDC said.

U.S. Hispanics have not experienced as large a decline in childhood cancer death rates as other groups, according to the CDC report. Their cancer death rates have declined by only 1 percent per year during the 15 years studied.

There were also regional differences, with cancer death rates falling the least in the West and the most in the Midwest, the CDC said. In addition, boys had significantly higher death rates than girls, the CDC said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2007)