PATTERN OF CHILDHOOD MALIGNANCY IN CENTRAL INDIA: A THREE YEARS RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Saini M.*, Barman M.L., Ghanghoriya P., Agarwal G. and Singhothiya L.

ABSTRACT

Background: Childhood malignancy although a uncommon medical entity but latest data has shown a rising trend of its incidence. Cancer remains one of the major causes of death in children between 1-15 years. Objective: This study was conducted to find out the profile of malignancy in children. Methodology: It was a retrospective study conducted in NSCB Medical College; Jabalpur using hospital based cancer registry records from April 2013 to March 2016. All the children below 14 years with confirmed diagnosis of cancer by means of histological or cytological examinations were included in this study and data was statistically analyzed using MS word and SPSS 18. Results: We observed that there were total 5200 cases among them 165 were newly confirmed paediatric cases attended outpatient department, in department of oncology at N.S.C.B Medical College and Hospital during these 3 years. All were below 14 years of age. Overall pediatric tumors were 3.17% of total cancers. The frequency of cancer was found to be higher among boys (59.4%) than girls (40.6%) with a ratio of 1.5:1. Majority of the children were from rural areas (82.4%) compared to urban areas(17.6%). As per the socio-economic status majority of belongs to low socio-economic status(92.1%). We observed that Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (21.8%), Wilms Tumor (11.18%) And Acute Myeloid Leukemia, Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Medulloblastoma (6.061% each) were respectively the commonest childhood cancers among the children attended at the hospital. Other less commonly found tumor were Retinoblastoma (4.24%) followed by CML, Ewings sarcoma, PNET, Sarcoma, Seminoma (3.63% each ) and Brain Tumor,Neuroblastoma, Ependymoma, Astrocytoma (2.42% each ). Conclusion: In this study it was evident that the patterns of malignancy in children attended pediatric and oncology OPD was different from western countries with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia as the commonest cancer in infants and children above six years of age and it is 1.8 times more common in male then female. WILMS tumor has increasing trends in our study as compared to previous literature.

Keywords: Cancer Registry, Pediatric Malignancies, Rural, ALL.