Neonatal tumors are rare with no standard treatment approaches to these
diseases, and the patients experience poor outcomes. Our aim was to determine
the distribution of cancers affecting neonates and compare survival between
these cancers and older children. We analyzed SEER data (1973–2007) from
patients who were younger than 2 years at diagnosis of malignancy. Special
permission was granted to access the detailed (i.e., age in months) data of
those patients. The Chi-square Log-rank test was used to compare survival
between neonates (aged 1 month to <2 years). We
identified 615 neonatal cancers (454 solid tumors, 93 leukemia/lymphoma, and
68 CNS neoplasms). Neuroblastoma was the most common neonatal tumor followed
by Germ cell tumors. The 5-year overall survival (OS) for all neonates was
60.3% (95% CI, 56.2–64.4). Neonates with solid tumors had the highest 5-year
OS (71.2%; 95% CI, 66.9–75.5), followed by those with leukemia (39.1%; 95% CI,
28.3–49.9) or CNS tumors (15%; 95% CI, 5.4–24.6). Except for neuroblastoma,
all neonatal tumors showed inferior outcomes compared to that in the older
group. The proportion of neonates who died from causes other than cancer was
significantly higher than that of the older children (37.9% vs. 16.4%; P <
0.0005). In general, the outcome of neonatal cancers has not improved over the
last 34 years. The distribution of neonatal cancer is different than other
pediatric age groups. Although the progress in neonatal and cancer care over
the last 30 years, only death from noncancer causes showed improvement.
Studying neonatal tumors as part of national studies is essential to
understand their etiology, determine the best treatment approaches, and
improve survival and quality of life for those patients
