Paediatric cancers are on the rise in the country. According to a study published in the latest issue of Indian Pediatrics, while childhood cancer cases are increasing across the country, higher incidents are being reported among boys in Southern region. In contrast cases were lowest in North-East in both boys and girls.
leukemia and lymphoma were the commonest malignancies in boys whereas leukemia and brain tumors were commonest in girls, as per the study conducted by l Satyanarayana and Smitha Asthana from the division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology, Noida and Preeti labani S from Department of Pediatrics, lN Hospital, Delhi.
The researchers came to the conclusion of this disturbing fact following collection of data from secondary data on age-adjusted rates of cancer incidence for children (0-14 years) from the report of the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) of the ICMR in 2013.
The aim was to summarise and provide an overview of the childhood cancer incidence reported in 25 population-based cancer registries (PBCR) of India, says the study.
Age-adjusted cancer incidence rates ranged from 18.6 per million to 159.6 per million for boys and 11.3 to 112.4 for girls. The highest incidence was observed for males (159.6) in Southern region of the country and the lowest in North-east in both boys (18.6) and girls (11.3), as per the study.
leukemia and lymphoma were the commonest malignancies in boys whereas leukemia and brain tumors were commonest in girls, notes the study.
The other childhood cancers are Central-nervous-system tumor, SNS tumor, retinoblastoma, renal tumor, hepatic tumor, bone tumor, soft tissue sarcoma and germ cell tumor.
latest NCRP report (2013) provides data from 25 PBCRs covering 7.45 per cent of the country’s population. According to the ICMR, a decade back, childhood cancers were 2.5 per cent of the total number of cancer cases. Today, they add up to 5.5 per cent. The ICMR started the NCRP with a network of cancer registries across India in December 1981.
Cancer in children and adolescents is rare and biologically very different from cancer in adults. In India cancer is the 9th common cause for the deaths among children between 5 to 14 years of age.