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More than eight in ten children are beating cancer, new figures show.

The number of youngsters surviving the illness for five or more years has risen from 79 per cent to 82 per cent in the past decade, according to Cancer Research UK.

In the 1960s only three in 10 survived after a diagnosis.

Survival rates for liver and bone tumours have made "particularly good progress" in recent years, a spokesman for the charity said.

In the last 10 years, five-year survival rates have increased from 67 per cent to 82 per cent for liver tumours and 61 per cent to 68 per cent for bone cancer.

But the charity warned there is "still some way to go" with certain forms of the disease such as neuroblastoma - a rare cancer that develops in the nerve cells - and medulloblastoma - a type of brain tumor.

The cancers have five-year survival rates of 67 per cent and 64 per cent respectively.

The figures were released as the charity launched its annual Little Stars Awards to recognise the courage of children who have undergone cancer treatment, the spokesman added.

Professor Pam Kearns, director of the Cancer Research UK clinical trial's unit in Birmingham, said: "Although more than eight in 10 children with cancer now survive their disease for more than five years more work is needed to discover better treatments.

"As more and more children survive cancer, it is especially important that we concentrate on improving the quality of life after cancer."

Professor Peter Johnson, the charity's chief clinician, added: "Cancer Research UK is funding a range of trials to develop new treatments for cancers where we currently have few treatment options, such as aggressive neuroblastoma.

"We hope these efforts will mean there are even more childhood cancer survivors in the UK in the years to come."