Incidence and trends of hepatic cancer among children and adolescents in the United States from 2000 to 2017: Evidence from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry data

Objective Primary liver tumors are rare pediatric malignancies. Knowledge of the epidemiology of pediatric liver tumors is limited. This study aims to present the national incidence trends of pediatric liver tumors over 18 years, according to sociodemographic and histological subtype variation. Methods The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry was queried from 2000 to 2017 for 1,099 patients between ages 0 and 19 with liver tumors. Age-standardized incidence rates by age, sex, and race/ethnicity were examined among histological subtypes. Annual percentage change (APC) was calculated via joinpoint regression for various sociodemographic and histotype subgroups. Results An increase of age-adjusted incidence rate of pediatric hepatic cancers was observed between 2000 and 2017 (APC, 1.7% [95% confidence interval or CI: 0.6%–2.8%], p -value = 0.006), which may likely attribute to the increasing incidence of hepatoblastoma and mesenchymal tumors (APC, 2.5% [95% CI: 1.1%–3.8%], p -value = 0.001). The incidence trend of hepatocellular carcinoma remained stable in the study period. The non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander children and adolescents had a higher risk of hepatic tumors (incidence rate ratio or IRR, 1.42 [95% CI: 1.16–1.72], p -value = 0.0007) when compared with the non-Hispanic white subgroup, while a non-Hispanic black child was associated with a lower incidence rate (IRR, 0.64 [95% CI: 0.50–0.80], p -value < 0.0001). Significantly lower hepatic tumor incidence occurred in females than males, with an incidence rate ratio of 0.69 (95% CI: 0.61–0.78; p -value < 0.0001). Hepatic tumor incidence was also significantly lower in those aged 1–4 years (IRR, 0.47 [95% CI: 0.40–0.54]; p -value < 0.001) and 5–19 years (IRR, 0.09 [95% CI: 0.08–0.10]; p –value < 0.001) when compared with the youngest age group aged less than 1 year. These significant differences were also detected for the subgroup of hepatoblastoma and mesenchymal liver tumors but less among hepatocellular carcinomas (all p -values less than 0.0001). Conclusion Continued increasing incidence of pediatric hepatoblastoma and mesenchymal liver tumors was discovered and warranted further investigation. Additional findings include a lower incidence of hepatic cancer among non-Hispanic black individuals and higher incidence of hepatic cancer in non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander, male, and aged 1–4-year children and adolescents.