Childhood cancer incidence in Queensland, 1979–88

✍ Scribed by W. R. McWhirter; A. L. Petroeschevsky

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 332 KB
• Volume: 45
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.2910450603

✦ Synopsis

Data on the incidence of childhood cancer in Queensland during the 10-year period 1979-88 are presented. During this period, 786 cases were registered. The average annual crude and age-standardized (to the world population) incidence rates for both sexes were 12.63 and 13.30 per IO0,OOO respectively. The incidence of cancer in males is unusually high, as is the sex ratio of I .57. ALL accounted for 78% of all leukaemias. There appears to have been a decline in the incidence of Hodgkin's disease, especially in older children, compared with an earlier Queensland series. Ewing's tumour remains commoner than osteosarcoma. Some modifications to the classification scheme for childhood cancer are proposed. The most important of these is the omission of hngerhans-cell histiocytosis, which is not now regarded as a neoplasm.

Childhood cancer forms only a small proportion of the total number of cases of cancer. However, within the childhood age group it is an important cause of morbidity and mortality. The pattern of incidence of the individual types of morphology is strikingly different from that seen in adults. It is therefore appropriate to report separately cancer incidence rates in childhood.

Published reports of childhood cancer incidence should be presented in a standard form so that they are comparable with those of other regions. Since population structures vary, incidence rates should be standardized to a world population. A suggestion for a rational grouping of childhood cancer according to morphology has been published (Birch and Marsden, 1987). This format, with some minor modifications, has been adopted here.