Is the incidence of brain tumors really increasing? A population-based analysis from a cancer registry

Abstract

Recently, an increasing incidence of brain tumors has been reported from multiple studies. Brain tumors diagnosed in the period 1985-2005 were identified through the Tuscan Cancer Registry, a population-based registry active since 1985 in the area of Florence and Prato. Age-standardized incidence rates and average annual percent change (APC) was calculated for the entire period from 1985 to 2005 for sex and behavior. A total of 4,417 brain tumors was registered, 1,900 (43%) in male and 2,517 (57%) in female patients. Malignant and benign tumor incidence rates were 8.3 and 4.1, respectively, among males and 6.4 and 7.2, respectively, among females. The age-adjusted annual incidence rate of all brain tumors was 13.9, with a statistically significant increasing rate throughout the period (APC: +3.2, CI 2.2-4.2). The annual incidence rate remained stable for malignant brain tumors but increased significantly for benign brain tumors (APC: +6.2, CI 4.5-7.9). In our population-based study, the incidence of brain tumors increased from 1985 to 2005 overall and for benign tumors, but not for malignant tumors. Part of the temporal variations may be attributed to improvement in diagnostic imaging techniques and, particularly for benign tumors, in changes in registration practice.

Primary brain tumour epidemiology in Georgia: first-year results of a population-based study

“…In other studies, however, comparable to our rate of histologically verified tumours (35-59%) have been reported [2,16,19].…”

“…We suspect that the cause may be multifactorial. It should be noted, however, that a similar discrepancy was reported before between the incidence of malignant tumours in developed and developing countries [15], furthermore even in some European countries incidence rates of primary intracranial tumours in a range between 8.5-14 per 100,000 were reported [8,16,17]. The active case ascertainment method used in our study does not exclude influences of several factors, which may result in missing of brain tumours cases.…”

Incidence rates of the primary brain tumours in Georgia - a population-based study

“…In contrast, histological verification rate is 69% in CBTRUS report and 80.9% in the ABTR data. In other studies, however, pathological confirmation index varied widely from 35% to 59% [11,15,16]. The percentage of histologically verified cases is one of the registry reliability indicators and efforts should be directed towards improving this value, which is less likely to reflect bias in reporting cancer cases (the index in our study is persistently low in both years – 38% and 33.5%, respectively).…”

Clinical presentation and epidemiology of brain tumors firstly diagnosed in adults in the Emergency Department: a 10-year, single center retrospective study

“…Some regional registries (for example in Spain, Italy, and France) have also provided useful data (6)(7)(8), but clinical and biological information are rarely investigated despite their clear relevance.…”