Profile of childhood cancers: a multicentric study.

The incidence of cancer has been increasing steadily in the developing world including India. Childhood cancers are a special entity with different genetic, environmental factors playing a role in their aetiology. The profiles of cancer incidence reflect the racial, cultural and geographical diversity within populations. This article shows the profile of childhood cancer across three medical college hospitals in the state of West Bengal in India and the data were collected from the period between 2008 and 2011. The results showed leukaemia was the most common cancer affecting children followed by lymphoma and retinoblastoma.The profile of childhood cancers showed wide variation among the age groups. Frequency of retinoblastoma, renal tumours, neuroblastoma and hepatic tumours were higher in children less than five years whereas lymphoma, leukaemia, bone tumours and central nervous system tumours were found more in children above five years. As many of common childhood malignancies are curable there is need to have a dedicated paediatric cancer registry for assessing the magnitude of problem in our country as paediatric cancers show wide variation across centres.