Alberta Childhood Cancer Survivorship Research Program

Abstract

Adverse outcomes after childhood cancer have been assessed in a range of settings, but most existing studies are historical and ascertain outcomes only after 5-year survival. Here, we describe the Alberta Childhood Cancer Survivorship Research Program and its foundational retrospective, population-based cohort of Albertan residents diagnosed with a first primary neoplasm between the ages of 0 and 17 years from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2018. The cohort was established in collaboration with the Alberta Cancer Registry and Cancer in Young People in Canada program and has been linked to existing administrative health databases and patient-reported outcome questionnaires. The cohort comprised 2581 survivors of childhood cancer, 1385 (53.7%) of whom were 5-year survivors. Approximately 48% of the cohort was female, 46% of the cohort was diagnosed between 0 and 4 years of age, and the most frequent diagnoses were leukemias (25.3%), central nervous system tumors (24.2%), and lymphomas (14.9%). Detailed treatment information was available for 1745 survivors (67.6%), with manual abstraction ongoing for those with missing data. By the study exit date, the median time since diagnosis was 5.6 years overall and 10.3 years for 5-year survivors. During the follow-up time, 94 subsequent primary cancers were diagnosed, 16,669 inpatient and 445,150 ambulatory/outpatient events occurred, 396,074 claims were reported, and 408 survivors died. The results from this research program seek to inform and improve clinical care and reduce cancer-related sequelae via tertiary prevention strategies.

Keywords: childhood cancer; epidemiology; pediatric cancer; survivorship.

Figure 1

Distribution of ICCC-3 diagnosis categories, overall (A) and among 5-year survivors (B).

Figure 2

Alberta Childhood Cancer Survivorship Research Program cohort constitution flowchart.