Cancer incidence, survival, and mortality for children younger than age 15 years

Abstract

Incidence and survival data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program for the 10-year period 1973-1982 are presented. Childhood cancer incidence rates have remained relatively stable over the last decade. The overall incidence rate increased slightly from 124 to 127 per million children from 1973-1977 to 1978-1982 while rates for leukemias remained unchanged over this same time period at 38 per million for all races combined. Leukemias and lymphomas accounted for 44% of all cancers among white children and 33% among blacks. For all forms of cancer combined, the 5-year relative survival rate was 57% for both whites and blacks. The 5-year relative survival rate exceeded 80% for fibrosarcomas, retinoblastomas, Hodgkin's disease, and gonadal and germ cell tumors. Survival rates for children have shown improvement during the last decade, the most dramatic improvements occurring among patients with leukemia (15% 5-year relative survival in 1967-1973 versus 51% in 1973-1981), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (24% versus 51%), and bone tumors (28% versus 48%).

Intraoperative radiotherapy in the multidisciplinary treatment of bone sarcomas in children and adolescents

“…The patient characteristics by histological tumor types are detailed in Table I. The pathology report classified the following osteosarcoma subtypes: chondroblastic [6], osteoblastic [11], fibroblastic [1], mixed [2], and other histologies [1]. Tumor characteristics are listed in Table II. Staging procedures included computed tomography (CT) of the primary site, chest, and liver; bone scan and radiography of the chest and primary bone involved.…”

“…Four patients received external beam radiotherapy because of macroscopic residual postsurgical disease: 46 Gy [3] and 50 Gy [1]. Another patient received preoperative external beam radiotherapy for a large primary tumor (25 Gy).…”

“…The associated symptoms were motor deficit, loss of discriminant sensitivity, and chronic pain. None of these cases had protection of the nerves from the IORT beam: the sciatic, femoral, and internal popliteal sciatic nerves were included in the IORT field and received 15 Gy [2] and 20 Gy [1].…”

“…The most common histological types are rabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma, and Ewing's sarcoma [1]. Approximately 60% of these lesions are found in bones or soft tissues of the extremities [2].…”

Childhood cancer and ethnic group in Britain: a United Kingdom children's Cancer Study Group (UKCCSG) study

“…Changes in incidence among migrant populations may suggest environmental determinants in the host country whereas stable incidence may indicate relatively greater importance of genetic factors. Patterns of childhood cancer incidence in different ethnic groups in the United States are well documented (Kramer et al, 1983;Young et al, 1986;Parkin et al, 1988a;Goodman et al, 1989a;Goodman et al, 1989b) and incidence rates by ethnic group have been published for several other countries, mostly in Asia (Parkin et al, 1988a). An increasing proportion of the British childhood population are members of diverse ethnic groups but hitherto little published information on their patterns of cancer incidence has been available.…”