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Introduction
To estimate overall and disease specific survival amongst patients with bladder cancer ≤ 18 years old using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry data and to explore factors associated with survival.
Material and Methods
Using SEER data, all persons aged ≤ 18 years diagnosed with histologically confirmed primary urothelial bladder cancer between 1973 and 2010 were identified. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survivor functions, and the log-rank test was used to test the equality of survivor functions. Factors associated with survival were identified using Cox’s proportional hazards model.
Results
A total of 215 patients ≤ 18 years old were diagnosed with bladder cancer, of which 97 had transitional cell carcinoma. Mean age at diagnosis was 16 years. Seventy-four percent of patients were male. Nearly 50% of tumors were well-differentiated. Type of definitive therapy varied. Four patients (4.1%) died, one from bladder cancer. Overall survival in patients with poorly differentiated grade or cell type not determined were significantly worse than in those with well differentiated or moderately differentiated tumors. There were no statistically significant differences in overall survival between age group, gender, racial group, stage and year of diagnosis
Conclusion
In a population based cohort, urothelial bladder cancer in patients <=18 years of age is rare. If diagnosed with urothelial carcinoma, stage and grade is often low and thus the prognosis is excellent. However, if diagnosed with advanced disease then the overall prognosis is poor and reflects the aggressive nature of this cancer.