Abstract
Purpose
Survival of adolescents (15–19 years old) with cancer has shown less favourable improvement
in comparison with survival rates for younger children and older adults. This might
be partly explained by the relative lack of participation of adolescents in cooperative
clinical protocols.
Methods
This analysis compares the number of 15- to 19-year-olds treated at the paediatric
oncology centres affiliated to the AIEOP (and registered in the ‘model 1.01’) with
the number of incident cases predicted in Italy based on incidence rates from the
Italian network of cancer registries (AIRTum).
Results
By 2006, over 22,000 cases had been registered in the model 1.01, and 1743 of these
were adolescents. The ratio of observed/expected (O/E) cases of 15- to 19-year-olds
was 0.10 (as opposed to 0.77 for the 0–14-year-old children), and this ratio increased
from 0.05 to 0.18 over three successive study periods (1989–1994, 1995–2000 and 2001–2006).
Sarcomas were the neoplasms with the highest O/E ratios, with 0.28 and 0.43 for osteosarcoma
and Ewing sarcoma and 0.33 and 0.39 for rhabdomyosarcoma and other soft-tissue sarcomas,
respectively. In the period 1989–2006, 55% of the adolescents registered (versus 69%
of the children) were enrolled in formal national trials.
Conclusion
Our study confirms a lower referral of 15- to 19-year-old adolescents to paediatric
oncology units and their under-representation in clinical trials, but we also observed
a progressive improvement in this situation in recent years.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 09, 2009
Accepted:
December 3,
2008
Received in revised form:
November 19,
2008
Received:
September 3,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
