Περίληψη:
Background: Monitoring time trends in the incidence of childhood
leukaemias and lymphomas requires efficient and continuous data
collecting systems. In countries without official cancer registries,
such as Greece, ad hoc nationwide registration of incident childhood
leukaemias and lymphomas could help elucidate the underlying aetiology
and monitor socioeconomic differentials in health care delivery.
Methods: We registered all cases and produced age, gender, type and
immunophenotype specific figures and overall crude and age adjusted
annual incidence rates and secular trends for 863 leukaemia and 311
lymphoma incident cases diagnosed in children,15 years of age across
Greece during 1996-2006, namely the first 11 years of the Nationwide
Registry for Childhood Hematological Malignancies.
Results: The epidemiological profiles of leukaemias/lymphomas in Greece
are similar to those in industrialised countries. No secular trends are
observed for either malignancy during the studied period. However, the
calculated incidence for leukaemia (46.60 cases per 1 million children
annually) is among the highest in the EU-27 (19% higher than average; p
< 0.001), whereas that for lymphoma (16.8 cases per 1 million children
annually) is around the EU-27 average.
Conclusions: Minimal secular changes in childhood leukaemias/lymphomas
have been noted recently in the EU-27, which cannot be easily explained
in countries with small populations. Therefore, centralised EU databases
such as the Automated Childhood Cancer Information System (ACCIS) should
be enlarged to generate sufficient statistical power for monitoring time
trends. It would be interesting to explore whether different lifestyle
patterns across the EU might be responsible for the observed excess
leukaemia incidence in countries such as Greece.
Συγγραφείς:
Petridou, E. T.
Pourtsidis, A.
Dessypris, N.
Katsiardanis,
K.
Baka, M.
Moschovi, M.
Polychronopoulou, S. and
Koliouskas, D.
Sidi, V.
Athanasiadou-Piperopoulou, F. and
Kalmanti, M.
Belechri, M.
La Vecchia, C.
Curado, M. P. and
Skalkidis, I.
