Rare Childhood Cancer Burden in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Accurate childhood cancer burden data are crucial for resource planning and health policy prioritization. In Bangladesh we have no national population based cancer registry. Data about the total burden of childhood cancer in our country is unknown. But a hospital based cancer registry is the cheapest way to assess the tumor burden of a nation. So we investigate the total pediatric cancer burden and the percentage of different types of rare childhood cancers (RCC) of National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH), Dhaka, during the year 2014 – 2018. Aim: To investigate the total number of pediatric cancers, frequency of different types of rare cancer and percentage of rare childhood cancer in the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (PHO) department. Methods: Data were collected from all pediatric (0-17 years) patients between the year 2014 and 2018 prospectively. Definitive diagnosis of cases were established by histopathological and or immunohistochemical study. As we have no population-based cancer registry, we considered the rare tumors in our study according to the Children's Oncology Group (COG) and the German Childhood Cancer Registry (GCCR). Results: Total number of childhood cancers and RCC was 2242 and 351 respectively. Percentage of rare tumors was 15.66% in our center. Benign rare tumors were 18.52% (N-65) cases. Common age group was the 5-9 years group (54.13 %). Most common RCC groups were Non-Rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcoma (NRSTS) constituting 49.29 %, followed by Malignant epithelial neoplasms and melanomas (38.18%). Diagnostic delay was 3.52 months. Most common malignancy was Synovial Sarcoma (N-40, 11.39%), Peripheral Neuroectodermal Tumor (N-39, 11.11%), Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (N-35, 9.97%), Malignant small round cell tumor (N-31, 8.83%) and Carcinoma rectum and colon (N-23, 6.55%). Conclusion: We have found that our Institutional (NICRH) rare tumor rate (15.66%) was a bit higher than US national RCC (15%). Though Institutional cancer data reflect the national burden, to estimate the accurate number and percentage of RCC, National Cancer Registry is needed.