title: Survival trends of childhood cancer during the period 1978-1994 in Italy: a first report from the Italian cancer registries.
abstract: This article shows the survival trends of childhood cancers diagnosed from 1978 to 1994 in Italy. A first analysis presents a survival increase for all the diagnostic categories and in both sexes, with the exception of Hodgkin's disease, for which five-year survival is stable at 97%. The results of this analysis show that five-year survival changes from 54% to 72% for all cancers, from 56% to 70% for non Hodgkin's lymphomas, from 53% to 64% for central nervous system tumours, from 59% to 78% for acute lymphatic leukaemia, from 18% to 42% for acute non lymphatic leukaemia, from 30% to 62% for neuroblastoma and from 33% to 71% for malignant bone tumours. Concerning international comparisons, the overall Italian rates and their increases are very similar to the USA ones. Instead, if we consider a comparison between survival trends in Italy and survival trends observed in some European countries, like Great Britain, Slovakia and Denmark, it is evident that in Italy there is a faster improvement of prognosis for almost all diagnostic categories.
authors.affiliation: Registro dei Tumori Infantili delle Marche, Dipartimento di scienze igienistiche e sanitarie-ambientali, Università degli studi di Camerino. pannelli@camserv.unicam.it
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pannelli
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mosciatti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Felici
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Magnani
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pascucci
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pastore
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D012042:Registries; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends; D013997:Time Factors