Profile of infantile malignancies at tertiary cancer center—A study from south India

Abstract

20026 Background: Infantile malignancies are peculiar in the way they present with lot of diversity and had poor prognosis compared to other pediatric malignancies. The spectrum of malignancies had a great regional variability owing to the environmental and genetic differences (both aquired, maternal and paternal). Methods: It is a retrospective data analysis conducted at a tertiary care cancer center, Bangalore, India. The institute has an annual attendance of 16,000 new cases with reasonably good follow-up. The contribution of pediatric malignancies is 18%. The details were collected from the case records and percentages were calculated for the variables. Results: Between 2003–2006 we diagnosed 1,798 pediatric tumors. Of them 198 (11%) are infantile malignancies. The commonest diagnosis at our center is leukemia (30% of all infantile malignancies). The main types of leukemia are ALL-80%, AML-13%, and CML-7%. Other hematological malignancies are lymphomas- 2%, myelo proliferative disorders and Langerhan Cell histiocytosis-3% each. The next common diagnosis is benign neoplasms, wrongly diagnosed as malignant at the secondary referral center which contributed 16% of all cases. The reminder 46% is solid malignancies. In the decreasing frequency the incidences are Wilm’s tumor-12%, neuroblastoma-10%, germ cell tumors-8%, retinoblastoma- 6% CNS malignancies and 3% hepatoblastoma -2%. The reminders are other rare malignancies. Conclusion: The contribution of infantile malignancies at our center is relatively higher compared to the west. Similarly Relative contribution of AML to the all hematological malignancies and neurblastoma & CNS tumors to solid malignancies is less compared to the existing literature. Wilm’s tumor and ALL diagnosed more frequently than expected in our population. All these findings together suggest that south Indian population had a different spectrum of infantile malignancies compared to rest of the world and their genetic and environmental risk factors need further exploration. No significant financial relationships to disclose.