The prognosis for infants with cancer is often worse than in children of older ages, even when comparing the same histologic diagnosis. Infant neuroblastoma was an exception. The age of peak incidence of cancer in children occurs during the first year of life. Neuroblastoma is the most common infant malignancy, followed by the leukemias and the CNS cancers. Female infants and male infants have essentially the same overall cancer incidence rates.
White infants have substantially higher cancer rates than black infants for most cancer types.
Relative survival for infants is very good for neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor and retinoblastoma, but not for most other types of cancer. The distribution of malignant disease in infants is quite different from that which is found in older children, adolescents, or adults. For instance, embryonal tumors such as neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor, retinoblastoma, medulloblastoma and hepatoblastoma are more prevalent in infants than in humans of any other age. The descriptive epidemiologic data that is presented here may serve to stimulate ideas for further etiologic research into the multifactorial nature of cancer occurrence. The study of infant cancer can aid in developing new hypotheses related to how aberrant genetic processes, early developmental abnormalities and gene-environment interactions contribute to the carcinogenic process.