Pattern of childhood malignancies: study of 922 cases at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE To determine the pattern of childhood cancer in northern Pakistan. DESIGN A descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION January 1992 to December 2001 at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. MATERIALS AND METHODS All histologically diagnosed malignant childhood tumours registered with the tumour registry of our institute were retrieved from the case files. Basic epidemiological data regarding each case were collected from the request forms and analysed for the site of involvement, age distribution and histological types of tumour. RESULTS During the ten year study period a total of 922 childhood malignancies, constituting 4.3% of all malignant tumours, were seen. Haematological malignancies (lymphomas and leukaemias) were the commonest, accounting for 50.4% in males and 37.7% in females. The haematological malignancies were followed by tumours of bone (6.3%), CNS (6.3%), and eye (4.84%) in males and soft tissue tumours as 5th common in females. Skin, renal and colorectal tumours were also in the ten commonest in both sexes and so were ovarian tumours in females. CONCLUSIONS Lymphomas and leukaemias are the main bulk of childhood cancer. Malignant tumours were twice more common in males than females in this series.