Epidemiology of Childhood Cancer in Northeast of Iran

Background: Malignant neoplasms remain the second leading cause of death in children after accidents. The aim of this study was to assess the epidemiology of childhood cancer in children admitted to Dr sheikh hospital, Iran. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross- sectional study had been done in Dr Sheikh Hospital in Mashhad University of medical science on 1764 children younger than 14 years old from 2006up to 2014 with cancer that has been pathologically confirmed. All information about the age, sex, type of cancers, and the residence of patients were collected and recorded from their medical records. Results: regarding gender, 1055 of cases were male and 709 female. The mean age of patients was 5.8± 4.2 years old while 30% were in age group of 3-6 years. Results showed that leukemia (56.4%), Lymphomas (10.3%), renal tumor (9.3%), malignant bone tumor (4.4%), and CNS tumor (4.1%) were the most prevalent malignancies in children admitted to Dr Sheikh hospital in Mashhad, Iran. The most common form of leukemia was ALL (86.9%). during the course of thestudy, the lowest and highest age standardized incidence rate was 114 (2006) and 142 (2014) cases out of each 1000,000 person, respectively. Conclusion: Distribution of childhood cancer in terms of year revealed the increase of malignant tumor prevalence about 2.5% from 2006 to 2014. Incidence of childhood cancers in Dr Sheikh hospital in Northeast of Iran was similar to neighboring province and other countries.