Study shows that lymphomas are more common in the head and neck, mainly affecting boys with an average age of 9 years
Researchers from the Postgraduate Program in Stomatopathology at the Faculty of Dentistry of Piracicaba (FOP) at Unicamp and the Centro Infantil Boldrini de Campinas, one of the largest pediatric oncology centers in Latin America, dedicated themselves to filling a gap: the lack of scientific knowledge about the epidemiological, clinical and pathological profile of Brazilian patients affected by head and neck cancer in childhood.
The study showed that the most common demographic profile of patients with head and neck cancer is children with an average of 9 years of age, with boys being the most affected compared to girls. In the head and neck region, the area most affected by cancer was the neck (and cervical lymph nodes) and lymphomas were the most common types of cancer in this section of the work.
According to professor Alan Roger dos Santos Silva, who supervised the master's thesis of dental surgeon Paola Aristizabal Arboreda, the fact that lymphomas predominate in the head and neck region of Brazilian children seems to be a peculiarity of the population investigated. In similar studies carried out in other parts of the world, especially in developed countries, the results suggest that sarcomas are the most common subtype of cancer.
The research also showed that Brazilian patients are most frequently affected by the following histopathological types of malignant tumors: Burkitt lymphomas; nodular sclerosis-type Hodgkin lymphomas; and nasopharyngeal carcinomas and rhabdomyosarcomas. The main anatomical regions affected were the neck and cervical lymph nodes, the nasopharynx and the thyroid gland. The evaluations indicated that the average age of male patients at the time of diagnosis was 9,35 years and patients aged between 10 and 14 years had a higher prevalence of malignant tumors.
At the Boldrini Children's Center, the study was coordinated by professor Regina Maria Holanda de Mendonça, also a collaborating researcher at the Department of Oral Diagnosis of FOP. The investigation considered the demographic and clinicopathological distribution of malignant head and neck tumors in patients aged zero to 19 years treated at the hospital between 1986 and 2016.
Despite being a retrospective study, Regina Mendonça explains that the data were based on the demographic, clinical and pathological characteristics of a very representative population in historical terms and volume of patients investigated. “This is medical information from 7.181 children and adolescents with cancer treated by the Boldrini team, of which 367 treatments related to cancer in the head and neck region”, she states.
The research results were featured on the cover of the August edition of the scientific journal Journal of Oral Pathology & Medicine, official publication of International Association of Oral Pathologists, published in the United Kingdom (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jop.12634).
According to researchers, it is the It is the first time that the results of a study, based on a 30-year experience of a reference service, evaluating the epidemiological profile of children with head and neck cancer in Brazil, have been published in an indexed international journal.
