title: Cancer incidence in the age range 0-34 years: historical and actual status in Denmark.
abstract: On the basis of 55 years of continuous cancer registration in Denmark, we present cancer incidence rates, time trends and birth cohort analyses for persons aged 0-34 years. The group of 40,750 cancer patients showed a substantial over-representation of males aged 1-24 years. The cancer pattern among young (15-34 years) men was dominated by testicular cancer (35%), lymphomas (14%) and tumors of the brain (13%), while the pattern among young women was governed by invasive cervical cancer (19%), malignant melanoma (15%) and cancer of the breast (12%). In this age range, a positive time trend was seen after 1970, equivalent to average annual percentage increases of 1.9% for men and 1.8% for women, due mainly to markedly increasing trends for testicular cancer, malignant melanoma, brain tumors, thyroid cancer, skin carcinomas and skin sarcoma among men, and for brain tumors, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, malignant melanoma, skin carcinomas and thyroid cancer among women. We saw no clear time trend for breast cancer among women. The cancer pattern among children (0-14 years) was similar to that reported for other white populations.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Mirjam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van der Horst
authors.forename: Jeanette Falck
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Winther
authors.forename: Jørgen H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Olsen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000266:history; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012737:Sex Factors