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Understanding the 2020 pediatric cancer deficit: Insights from the National Childhood Cancer Registry

Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: To the EditorIncidence of common pediatric cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, central nervous system, sarcoma, gonadal/germ cell) have remained steady in the United States.1,2 Then, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted cancer control systems.3 We explore whether the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted these trends in pediatric and adolescent young adult (AYA) populations.We accessed the latest data from the National Childhood Cancer Registry (NCCR) via the Surveillance, Epidemiology, End Results (SEER) program.4 The NCCR is a nationally representative, population-based cancer registry that accounts for ~70% of cancers diagnosed in people under age 40 years.5 We extracted age-adjusted cancer incidence rates (1997-2020) of malignant cancers for pediatric (diagnosed ages 0-14 years) and AYA (diagnosed ages 15-39 years) populations.Using SEER's AYA Site Recode, we analyze five common pediatric cancer types: leukemias, lymphomas, central nervous system, sarcomas, and gonadal/germ cell (Table S1).6 To assess how the pandemic disrupted pediatric and AYA cancer incidence, we compared the 2019 with 2020 annual percentage change (APC), with the APC from 2018 to 2019.95% confidence intervals were calculated using the Tiwari method.7 Statistical significance was derived by whether the 95% confidence interval of the APC crossed zero.We conducted subgroup analyses by sex, cancer type, and commission on cancer (COC) accreditation status of the reporting facility (to capture health system variation).Tables S2-S4 include the raw data extracted from SEER (counts, rates, standard errors, confidence intervals, and percentage changes).Exhibit A (Supporting Information) includes the raw SEER*Stat files.
DOI: 10.1002/pbc.31345
Language: English
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4403157921
FWCI: 0.511
Cites: 3
Cited by: 3
Related to: 10