Childhood cancer incidence in Apulia Region (Southern Italy), 2003-2008]

OBJECTIVES: to investigate, for the first time, the incidence rates of malignant childhood cancers (children aged 0-14 years) in Apulia Region (Southern Italy) in the period 2003-2008. DESIGN: to compute incidence rates of childhood cancers from Apulia Region Cancer Registry database compared with the corresponding results published in 2012 by the Italian cancer registries network (AIRTUM), where data from the Apulia population were not included, because not available. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: we selected all incident cases of malignant tumours (behaviour: /3 of ICD-O-3 classification) in children aged 0-14 registered in the Apulia cancer registry. Local health unit (LHU) of Lecce (section of the Apulia cancer registry) collected data from 2003 to 2006; LHU of Taranto, BT, and Brindisi collected data from 2006 to 2008. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: we computed crude, age specific, and directly standardised rates (DSR), with 95% confidence intervals, of all malignant tumours, all categories and 5 subgroups of the ICCC-3 classification; standardised incidence ratios (SIR) for all childhood malignant tumours using the rates of the AIRTUM Pool 2003-2008 as reference. RESULTS: incident cases were 183. DSR (x106) of all childhood malignant tumours are: Apulia Region 169.7 (95% CI 145.9-196.4); Brindisi 160.4 (95% CI 106.2-232.9); BT 177.7 (95% CI 122.7-248.7); Lecce 144.3 (95% CI 111.1-184.2); Taranto 216.2 (95% CI 163.0-281.4). SIR estimates are: Apulia Region 102.9 (95% CI 88.5-119.0); Brindisi 100.2 (95% CI 66.6-144.9); BT 105.4 (95% CI 73.0-147.2); Lecce 85.5 (95% CI 66.0-109.0); Taranto 134.6 (95% CI 101.7-174.8). Main incidence measures for all ICCC-3 categories and five subgroups of childhood cancers in Apulia are also reported. CONCLUSIONS: in Apulia Region, we estimated a DSR for all childhood malignant tumours very close to that of the AIRTUM Pool. DSRs for each ICCC-3 category look comparable with the data from the national survey too. When data of each LHU were analysed, the SIR estimate makes it evident an excess of all malignant childhood cancers in the LHU of Taranto. Other results of particular cancers and specific age groups also provide suggestions for further investigations.