U.S. Department of Defense Surveillance of Neoplasms of Infancy

摘要

Neoplasms of infancy include an array of diagnoses of concern to military families. These conditions affect 3-5% of all infants, can be disfiguring, disabling, or life-threatening. Infantile neoplasms are similar to birth defects in that suspected risk factors include only those exposures in the prenatal and immediate postnatal periods, including parental exposures. Since infantile neoplasms are not captured by national standardized surveillance systems for birth defects, and are incompletely captured in existing cancer registries, a system that collects data on these critical diagnoses would complement existing surveillance efforts. We are conducting a surveillance study that will identify cases of neoplasms diagnosed in the first year of life among children born to military beneficiaries. Data are expected to provide baseline prevalence rates, may be used to generate or test hypotheses, and will assist in answering important questions about risk factors for infantile neoplasms. This protocol has been reviewed by funding agency (USAMRMC) and local (NHRC) IRBs. Permission to implement was granted in April 2002, and project has just formally begun. A report on CY2000 infantile neoplasms, including baseline prevalence estimates and comparisons among various demographic categories, will be completed in early 2003.