Incidence and time trends of soft tissue sarcomas in German children 1985-2004 - a report from the population-based German Childhood Cancer Registry.

The incidence of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) in Europe is increasing, but it is unclear whether this increase can also be seen in Germany. We analysed the heterogeneous group of STS recorded to the German Childhood Cancer Registry (GCCR) between 1985 and 2004 with respect to incidence data. Age-specific, age-standardised and cumulative incidence rates were calculated. Additionally, the average annual percent change (AAPC), derived from a Poisson regression model, was estimated, using time in years as the explanatory, continuous variable. Two thousand sixty-one children were diagnosed at a median age of 72 months. Most common are rhabdomyosarcomas (RMS) (n=1202) and fibrosarcomas (n=174). The age-standardised incidence rate (ASR) is 0.9 per 100,000/year for all STS, 0.70 for rhabdomyosarcoma-like (n=1588) and 0.18 for non-rhabdomyosarcoma-like (n=411) STS. AAPC is +0.4% (95%-confidence interval [-0.4;+1.2%]) for STS. In Germany, the increase in incidence rate is less evident than in other European countries.