Childhood and adolescent lymphoma in Spain: incidence and survival trends over 20 years.

BACKGROUND: Lymphoma is the third most common malignancy in children (0-14 years) and the first in adolescents (15-19 years). This population-based study-the largest ever done in Spain-analyses incidence and survival of lymphomas among Spanish children and adolescents. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 1664 lymphoma cases (1983-2007) for incidence and 1030 for survival (1991-2005) followed until 31/12/2010, were provided by 11 cancer registries. Age-adjusted incidence rates (ASRw) to the world standard population were obtained; incidence trends were modelled using the Joinpoint programme, observed survival (OS) was estimated with Kaplan-Meier and trends tested with a log-rank test. Results are presented according to the International Classification of Childhood Cancer-3. RESULTS: In Spain, the ASRw0-14 for lymphomas was 17.5 per 1.000.000 child-years and 50.0 the specific rate for adolescents. Overall incidence increased significantly during 1983-1997 with no increases thereafter. Patients over 9 years old showed significant rising trends for all subtypes, except for Burkitt lymphoma (BL) in adolescents. During 2001-2005 (age 0-19 years), 5-year OS was 94 (90-98), 73 (64-83) and 86 (78-94) for Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and BL, respectively. No improvement in survival was found. The incidence in Spain was higher than overall European rates, but within the range of that in Southern Europe. Comparing OS in Spain 1991-1995 and 2001-2005 with results for Europe of the Automated Childhood Cancer Information System (ACCIS) (1988-1997) and the European cancer registry-based study on survival and care of cancer patients (EUROCARE) (2000-2007), it was similar for HL and lower for NHL and BL. CONCLUSIONS: Systematic monitoring and analysis of lymphoma paediatric data would provide clinical and epidemiological information to improve the health care of these patients and the outcomes for these malignancies in Spain.

Cancer survival in adult patients in Spain. Results from nine population-based cancer registries.

INTRODUCTION: With the aim of providing cancer control indicators, this work presents cancer survival in adult (≥15 years) patients in Spain diagnosed during the period 2000-2007 from Spanish cancer registries participating in the EUROCARE project. METHODS: Cancer cases from nine Spanish population-based cancer registries were included and analysed as a whole. All primary malignant neoplasms diagnosed in adult patients were eligible for the analysis. Cancer patients were followed until 31 December 2008. For each type of cancer, 1-, 3- and 5-year observed and relative survival were estimated by sex, age and years from diagnosis. Furthermore, age-standardized 5-year relative survival for the period 2000-2007 has been compared with that of the period 1995-1999. RESULTS: Skin melanoma (84.6 95% CI 83.0-86.2), prostate (84.6% 95% CI 83.6-85.6) and thyroid (84.2% CI 95% 82.0-86.6) cancers showed the highest 5-year relative survival, whereas the worst prognosis was observed in pancreatic (6% 95% CI 5.1-7.0) and oesophageal (9.4% 95% CI 7.9-11.1) cancers. Overall, survival is higher in women (58.0%) than in men (48.9%). The absolute difference in relative survival between 2000-2007 and 1995-1999 was positive for all cancers as a whole (+4.8% in men, +1.6% in women) and for most types of tumours. Survival increased significantly for chronic myeloid leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and rectum cancer in both sexes, and for acute lymphoid leukaemia, prostate, liver and colon cancers in men and Hodgkin's lymphoma and breast cancer in women. Survival patterns by age were similar in Europe and Spain. A decline in survival by age was observed in all tumours, being more pronounced for ovarian, corpus uteri, prostate and urinary bladder and less for head and neck and rectum cancers. CONCLUSION: High variability and differences have been observed in survival among adults in Spain according to the type of cancer diagnosed, from above 84% to below 10%, reflecting high heterogeneity. The differences in prognosis by age, sex and period of diagnosis reveal opportunities for improving cancer care in Spain.

Variants in phospholipid metabolism and upstream regulators and non-small cell lung cancer susceptibility.

AIM: The relevance of the cytidine diphosphate-choline and Rho GTPases pathways in the pathogenesis of cancer has been previously demonstrated. We investigate by a case-control association study if genetics variants in these pathways are associated with risk of developing lung cancer. METHODS: Thirty-seven tag SNPs were evaluated as risk factor of NSCLC in 897 cases and 904 controls. RESULTS: Six SNPs were nominally associated with lung cancer risk, which were not significant after the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. No association was observed with the remaining 31 analyzed SNPs, neither it was found significant in haplotype frequencies. CONCLUSIONS: Although the implication of the two pathways investigated in our study in carcinogenesis is well established, our null results suggest that common genetic variants in CDP-choline and Rho GTPases-related genes are not risk factors for lung cancer.