Incidence of childhood cancers in golestan province of iran.
OBJECTIVE
This paper presents the incidence rates of childhood cancers using the data obtained from Golestan population based cancer registry (GPCR) between 2004 and 2006.


METHODS
GPCR registers only primary cancers based on standard protocols of the international association of cancer registries (IACR). We collect data on newly diagnosed (incident) cancer cases from all public and private diagnostic and therapeutic centers of the whole province. CanReg-4 software was used for data entry and analysis.


RESULTS
Totally 5076 cancer cases (all ages) were diagnosed in GPCR between 2004 and 2006. Of these, 139 (2.74 %) were children (aged 0-14 years) with mean (±SD) age of 8.06 (±4.48) years. The age standardized incidence rates for childhood cancer were 119.8 and 78.3 per 1000000 person-years in male and female children, respectively. Leukemia was the most common childhood cancer in Golestan province of Iran. Lymphomas and central nervous system tumors were the second and third ones, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The incidence rates of childhood cancers were relatively high in Golestan province of Iran. So, controlling of childhood cancers should be mentioned as an important issue in health policy making in this area.
Research Group, Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, IR Iran.
Abdolvahab
A
Moradi
Shahryar
S
Semnani
Gholamreza
G
Roshandel
Narges
N
Mirbehbehani
Abbasali
A
Keshtkar
Mohsen
M
Aarabi
Abbas
A
Moghaddami
Fatemeh
F
Cheraghali