Geographical patterns and time trends of cancer incidence and survival among children and adolescents in Europe since the 1970s (the ACCIS project): an epidemiological study

• Published in: The Lancet (British edition) 2004-12, Vol.364 (9451), p.2097-2105
• Main Authors: Steliarova-Foucher, Eva, Stiller, Charles, Kaatsch, Peter, Berrino, Franco, Coebergh, Jan-Willem, Lacour, Brigitte, Perkin, Max
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult; Age of Onset; Cancer; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Epidemiology; Europe - epidemiology; Health policy; Historical analysis; Humans; Incidence; Infant; Neoplasms - epidemiology; Neoplasms - mortality; Public health; Registries; Social conditions & trends; Survival; Survival Rate; Teenagers; Tumors
• ISSN: 0140-6736; 1474-547X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17550-8

Cancer is rare before age 20 years. We aimed to use the European database of childhood and adolescent cancer cases, within the Automated Childhood Cancer Information System project, to estimate patterns and trends of incidence and survival within Europe. Comparable, high-quality data from 63 European population-based cancer registries consisted of 113000 tumours in children and 18 243 in adolescents diagnosed in 1970–99. Incidence rates and survival were compared by region (east vs west), period, and malignant disease. In the 1990s, age-standardised incidence rates were 140 per million for children (0–14 years) and 157 per million for ages 0–19 years. Over the three decades, overall incidence increased by 1·0% per year (p