Cancer Incidence in Adolescents and Young Adults in 24 Selected Populations of Latin America

Objective: Describe incidence rates for the most common cancers in Latin American adolescents and young adults (AYA). Methods: Incidence data were extracted from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents series, available online (IARC). Age-standardized incidence rates and trend analysis were calculated. Trends were calculated by joinpoint regression analysis to obtain average annual percentage change values. Results: There were 22,990 invasive incident cancer cases in AYA between 1998 and 2007, obtained from 24 population-based cancer registries. The most common cancer in males was gonadal germ cell tumor, with incidence rates ranging from 1.7 to 7.0/100,000; in females the most common cancer was thyroid cancer, with rates ranging from 0.9 to 10.0/100,000. Incidence trends were limited to four regional populations and increased for all malignancies, in males from 1.8% to 3.4% and in females from 0.9% to 1.8%. Conclusions: Cancer incidence rates in Latin American AYA are low. There are few PBCRs with long-term data, and therefore, the results herein presented are a partial view of cancer in Latin American AYA populations.