Objective: To provide the regional pediatric cancer (age-group 0-14 years) burden and pattern in India utilizing published data of population-based cancer registries established under the National Cancer Registry Programme and Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.
Methods: Based on the geographic locations, the population-based cancer registries were categorized into six regions. The age-specific incidence rate was calculated using the number of pediatric cancer cases and population in the respective age-group. Age-standardized incidence rate per million and 95% CI were calculated.
Results: In India, 2% of all cases were pediatric cancer. The age-standardized incidence rate (95% CI) for boys and girls is 95.1 (94.3-95.9) and 65.5 (64.8-66.2) per million population, respectively. Registries from northern India reported the highest rate; while the lowest rate was in northeastern India.
Conclusions: There is a need to establish pediatric cancer registries in different regions of India to know the accurate pediatric cancer burden.