Up-to-date monitoring of childhood cancer long-term survival in Europe: tumours of the sympathetic nervous system, retinoblastoma, renal and bone tumours, and soft tissue sarcomas.

BACKGROUND Prognosis for most types of childhood tumours has improved during the last few decades. In this article we estimate up-to-date period survival for less common, but important childhood malignancies in Europe. METHODS Using the database of the Automated Childhood Cancer Information System we calculated period estimates of 10-year survival for the 1995-1999 period for children aged 0-14 years diagnosed during 1985-1999 with tumours of the sympathetic nervous system (NS), retinoblastoma, renal tumours, bone tumours and soft tissue sarcomas in four European regions. RESULTS Ten-year period survival for 1995-1999 was 66% in children with tumours of the sympathetic NS, 96% for retinoblastoma, 87% for renal tumours, 58% for bone tumours and 61% for soft tissue sarcomas. The higher period estimates, as compared with cohort and complete estimates indicate recent improvement in survival for tumours of the sympathetic NS and to a lesser extent for retinoblastoma and renal tumours. Region-specific period survival estimates were lowest for Eastern Europe for renal, bone and soft tissue tumours, but not for the other two tumour groups. CONCLUSION There have been further improvements in the 1990s in long-term survival of children diagnosed with several malignancies, albeit to a different extent in different European regions.