Tim has established the Tim Cahill Cancer Fund for Children with the aim of raising $500,000 over the next two years. The Tim Cahill Cancer Fund for Children will support Cancer Council NSW’s work for children’s cancer by:

• Funding research and clinical trials looking to find better ways to treat and detect cancer in children
  
• Providing support services to patients and their families to ease the burden of their cancer journey
  
• Helping to build ‘cancer smart’ communities – by providing information and education on cancer prevention, so our children will grow up knowing about the importance of sun safety, the risks of smoking, and lead healthy, active lives.

Kids Cancer

Fifty years ago, only five percent of children diagnosed with cancer survived. Today thanks to breakthroughs in research that Cancer Council NSW helps to fund, nearly 80 percent of children survive.

The reality is, one in every five children diagnosed with cancer still loses their life. And those who do survive, often face an uncertain future, knowing their cancer could return or their health could be affected in the future.

According to the most recent figures from The Cancer Institute (2005), the most common cancers in children are leukaemia (38%), followed by cancers of the central nervous system (15%), lymphoma (9%) and neuroblastomas (6%).

There were 181 cancers (106 in boys and 75 in girls) diagnosed in 2005 in NSW.