Abstract
Wilms’ tumor is the most common renal tumor of childhood, affecting seven to eight cases per million person years in children. It accounts for 95% of all pediatric renal cancers and 6% of all cancers below 15 years of age. The gender-specific incidence is almost similar with slight female preponderance. The mean age of diagnosis is 41.6 months in boys and 46.9 months in girls for unilateral disease. The patients with bilateral disease present approximately 1 year before those with unilateral disease. The recent data has revealed the difference in incidence between different geographic regions and ethnic groups within that geographic region. Various case control studies have been conducted to study the role of paternal occupational exposure and maternal occupational and hormonal exposure during pregnancy. There have been inconsistencies in the pattern of exposure, and it seems unlikely that environmental exposure has any significant role to play in the pathogenesis of Wilms’ tumor. This chapter discusses the epidemiology of Wilms’ tumor in particular relation to the incidence of the tumor, geographic and ethnic variations, causative hypothesis, role of environmental factors in causation, pertinent issues in low-income countries, and the role of tumor registries.
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Pathak, M., Bhusare, D. (2022). Epidemiology. In: Sarin, Y.K. (eds) Wilms’ Tumor. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3428-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3428-5_2
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