Cancer incidence among adolescents in France

In France, cancer ranks third as the most significant cause of mortality in young people. However, the incidence, the survival, and the management of adolescent cancers have never been studied. The aim of this study is to investigate incidence rate (IR) of adolescents with cancer from data recorded in French Cancer Registries covering eight administrative areas, representing 10% of the French population, over a 10-year period (from 1988 to 1997).

Data from the FRANCIM network of French population-based Cancer Registries were used to analyze cancer incidence among adolescents aged from 15 to 19 years, excluding basal cell carcinomas of skin.

In total, 699 cases were recorded. Of these, 22.9% were lymphomas, 12.7% germ-cell tumors, 11.9% leukemias, 10.6% central-nervous-system tumors, 10.0% bone neoplasms, 7.6% soft-tissue sarcomas, and 19.5% tumors of adulthood (thyroid carcinomas 4.9%, melanomas 9.0%, and other carcinomas 5.6%). The overall IR was 172.9 per million adolescents (M/F: 1.2) with an annual increase of 3% (P = 0.58). Over the two 5-year periods (1988-1992 and 1993-1997) the IR increases significantly for malignant melanomas (respectively 10.4 and 21.2; P = 0.04).

Our findings are similar to that reported by previous studies performed in European and North-American countries. Future studies need to focus on the etiology explaining the increase in incidence, the management and the impact of the type of care on outcomes.