This article shows the survival trends of childhood cancers diagnosed from 1978 to 1994 in Italy. A first analysis presents a survival increase for all the diagnostic categories and in both sexes, with the exception of Hodgkin's disease, for which five-year survival is stable at 97%. The results of this analysis show that five-year survival changes from 54% to 72% for all cancers, from 56% to 70% for non Hodgkin's lymphomas, from 53% to 64% for central nervous system tumours, from 59% to 78% for acute lymphatic leukaemia, from 18% to 42% for acute non lymphatic leukaemia, from 30% to 62% for neuroblastoma and from 33% to 71% for malignant bone tumours. Concerning international comparisons, the overall Italian rates and their increases are very similar to the USA ones. Instead, if we consider a comparison between survival trends in Italy and survival trends observed in some European countries, like Great Britain, Slovakia and Denmark, it is evident that in Italy there is a faster improvement of prognosis for almost all diagnostic categories.