The state of oncology care in Russia: children’s survival (0–14 years old). Populated study at the federal district level. Part II

Relevance. In 2021, 2998 children (0–14 years old) with a diagnosis of malignant tumors were registered in Russia as a whole and 290 in the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation. The incidence rates of children in Russia and in the North-Western Federal District of Russia are close – 11.6 and 12.7 per 100 000, which allows to expand our calculations of child survival according to the database of the Population cancer registry (DB PCR) of the Northwestern Federal District. The Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation is the only federal district in Russia where a PCR has been created that works in accordance with international standards and calculates observed and relative survival rates.

Until now, since 1994, we have had the opportunity to calculate the survival rates of patients with malignant tumors only in St. Petersburg on the basis of the DB created by the first PCR in Russia, operating according to international standards.

In February 2019, a unified DB of the PCR of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation was formed, which significantly expanded the possibility of studying the patterns of prevalence and effectiveness of treatment of patients with malignant tumors, including rare localization of malignant tumors, which include the child population (0–17 years old), especially when we are trying to investigate a detailed localization and histological structure of tumors separately for children (0–14 years) and adolescents (15–17 years).

The purpose of the study is to study the effectiveness of anti-cancer measures carried out in the country by calculating objective indicators according to international standards – the one- and 5-year survival rate of children (0–14 years old) with malignant tumors for all tumors and for individual localizations.

Materials and methods. The material of the study was a DB of patients with malignant tumors of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation with a volume of more than 1 million 450 thousand observations, including a childrenʼs contingent – more than 5,000 observations collected from 1995 to 2021. The Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation has a population of 13.9 million people, which is more than the population of Belarus, Latvia and Estonia combined. The number of children is more than 2.5 million. Survival rate of adolescents (15–17 years) our next article is dedicated to. Standard methods of calculating indicators recommended by the International Association of Cancer Registries for Epidemiological Studies (Eurocare program) were used.

Results. The study showed an increase in the one-year survival rate of sick children (0–14 years) from 82.4 to 89.0 % from 2000 to 2018, or by 8.0 %, 5-year from 66.7 to 70.5 % from 2000 to 2017, or by 5.7 %, with a higher level for girls. In national centers, the results of treatment of children with malignant tumors are even higher; however, accessibility to modern methods of treatment of children of all administrative territories is important to us.

Conclusions. For the first time in Russia, the effectiveness of anti-cancer measures in organizing oncological care for children at the federal district level has been demonstrated for more than 10 localizations of malignant tumors over a long observation period.

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