Childhood cancer mortality in Austria, 1980-1992

This paper is the first to describe trend analyses focusing on cancer mortality among children (aged 0-14) in Austria covering the period 1980-1992. The data used for analysis were abstracted from the official Austrian mortality statistics of the years 1980-1992. Because of the poor reliability of cancer registry data in Austria in the past, the study is based on mortality date only. The reliability of the mortality data is positively related to a high autopsy rate in Austria. Statistical standardization is based on the European standard population. In the period 1980-1992 cancer was the cause of death of 718 children. Leukaemia was responsible for 34.5% of all childhood cancer deaths and 1.5% of all childhood deaths. The mortality of all malignant neoplasms in children decreased significantly (p = 0.0004) from 54.8 per million in 1980 to 33.9 per million in 1992. This trend is mainly due to the reduction in mortality of leukaemia, which has decreased from 22.3 per million in 1980 to 13.1 per million in 1992 (p = 0.0003). The age group 0-4 years experienced the highest overall cancer mortality (46.7 per million). The decreasing trends are primarily caused by better diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and most probably not by decreasing incidence. Due to the small number of cases this positive effect can only be demonstrated in leukaemia mortality, but not for other cancer sites.