GCF Chan, SY Ha, KL Chan, TL Lee, W Cheng, KN Hung, YW Fan, PKH Tam, YL Lau

Abstract

The spectrum and clinical aspects of malignant neoplastic diseases diagnosed in the infancy period are quite distinct from those found in older children. However, there are very few published data focusing on this particular group of patients. We performed a retrospective study on our paediatric cancer patients in order to review the spectrum and clinical aspects of infant malignant diseases. A total of 40 infants with various malignant neoplastic illnesses and Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) were diagnosed in our unit within a 10 years period (Jan 89 to Dec 98). It accounts for 13.5% (40/296) of the total paediatric oncology patients diagnosed within the same time span. Blastoma is the most common group of illnesses (n=19) in the infancy period, followed by leukaemia (n=8) and brain tumour (n=7). Malignant blastoma in the infancy period appears to have good outcome. But infants with acute leukaemia and brain tumour had poorer prognosis as compared to older children with the same diseases. Even within the same disease category, the biological behaviour of infant neoplasms appears to be different from that of the older children.

嬰幼兒惡性腫瘤的類型及臨床的特徵與大齡兒童有明顯的差異。然而，關於這類特殊病人的資料報導很少。為了描述嬰幼兒惡性腫瘤的類型及臨床特徵，我們進行了一回顧性調查研究。89年1月至98年12月，在我部共有40例嬰兒診斷為各種惡性腫瘤及Langerhan細胞增多病。這些病例佔同期兒童惡性腫瘤病總數的13.5%(40/296)。嬰兒期時最常見的腫瘤是胚細胞瘤(19例)，其次為白血病(8例)及腫瘤(7例)。嬰兒期胚細胞瘤的癒後似乎較好。但嬰兒急性白血病及腦瘤的癒後則較大齡兒童差。即使屬於同一類別的腫瘤，嬰兒腫瘤的生物學行為似乎有別於大齡兒童腫瘤。