Incidence and trends of neuroblastoma in Mexican children attending at Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social

BACKGROUND: Neuroblastoma (NB) is the principal tumor of the sympathetic nervous system in children. OBJECTIVE: to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of Mexican children with NB. METHODS: A population-based, prolective study, with data obtained from the Childhood Cancer Registry of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social. The frequencies and incidence of the variables of the study were obtained by age and sex. The trend was calculated with the annual percentage of change. RESULTS: Of a total of 2758 children with cancer, 72 (2.6%) were identified in the Group IV, according to the International Classification of Childhood Cancer. The average incidence for NB was 3.8, the highest incidence was found in Guerrero. NB was highest in the group under one year of age (18.5). The male/female ratio was 1.1 and there was no trend toward an increase. Stages III and IV were presented in 88% of the cases. There was no association between the stages, the age at the TD, or the histological pattern. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible that the low incidence of NB in Mexican children is due to the difficulty in early diagnosis due the majority of the cases was diagnosed in the advanced stages.