Cancer Incidence in Adolescents and Young Adults in 24 Selected Populations of Latin America.

OBJECTIVE

Describe incidence rates for the most common cancers in Latin American adolescents and young adults (AYA).

METHODS

Incidence data were extracted from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents series, available online (IARC). Age-standardized incidence rates and trend analysis were calculated. Trends were calculated by joinpoint regression analysis to obtain average annual percentage change values.

RESULTS

There were 22,990 invasive incident cancer cases in AYA between 1998 and 2007, obtained from 24 population-based cancer registries. The most common cancer in males was gonadal germ cell tumor, with incidence rates ranging from 1.7 to 7.0/100,000; in females the most common cancer was thyroid cancer, with rates ranging from 0.9 to 10.0/100,000. Incidence trends were limited to four regional populations and increased for all malignancies, in males from 1.8% to 3.4% and in females from 0.9% to 1.8%.

CONCLUSIONS

Cancer incidence rates in Latin American AYA are low. There are few PBCRs with long-term data, and therefore, the results herein presented are a partial view of cancer in Latin American AYA populations.