An estimated 8000 children 0 to 14 years of age are diagnosed annually with cancer in the United States. Leukemia and brain tumors are the most common childhood malignancies, accounting for 30 and 20% of newly diagnosed cases, respectively. From 1975 to 1978 to 1987 to 1990, cancer among white children increased slightly from 12.8 to 14.1/100,000. Increases are suggested for leukemia, gliomas, ...

A 1981 Massachusetts Department of Public Health study confirmed a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts. Our follow-up investigation attempts to identify factors potentially responsible for the cluster. Woburn has a 130-year industrial history that resulted in significant local deposition of tannery and chemical manufacturing waste. In 1979, two of the city's eight municipal drin...

Information suggesting that infection may be an underlying cause of childhood leukemia and lymphoma includes the occasional appearance of cases in time-space clusters within communities and increased incidence after communities experience marked population influxes (population mixing). Among 50 clusters involving cases of childhood leukemia and lymphoma investigated in the United States in 1961...

Current hypotheses consonant with the peak in leukemia incidence in early childhood point to an infectious etiology. The authors examined the effect of postnatal exposures predicted to affect early immune functioning, including childhood vaccinations, illness, medication use, and breastfeeding patterns. Children 0-15 years of age diagnosed with leukemia from 1990 to 1994 and resident within pri...

INTRODUCTION We investigated the role of maternal alcohol and coffee drinking and parental smoking on the risk of childhood acute leukemia in a multicenter case-control study. METHODS The study included 280 incident cases and 288 hospitalized controls, frequency matched with the cases by age, gender and center. Data collection was completed by face-to-face standardized interviews of the case ...

Epidemiologic studies of childhood leukemia have made limited use of tumor genetic characteristics, which may be related to disease etiology. We characterized the cytogenetics of 543 childhood leukemia patients (0-14 years of age) enrolled in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study, an approximately population-based study comprised primarily of Hispanics (42%) and non-Hispanic Whites (...

Some recent epidemiologic studies suggest an association between lymphatic and hematopoietic cancers and residential exposure to high-frequency electromagnetic fields (100 kHz to 300 GHz) generated by radio and television transmitters. Vatican Radio is a very powerful station located in a northern suburb of Rome, Italy. In the 10-km area around the station, with 49,656 residents (in 1991), leuk...

OBJECTIVES Childhood cancer mortality has substantially declined worldwide as a result of significant advances in global cancer care. Because limited information is available in Brazil, we analyzed trends in childhood cancer mortality in five Brazilian regions over 29 years. METHODS Data from children 0-14 years old were extracted from the Health Mortality Information System for 1979 through ...

Classical myelofibrosis syndromes (MPS) most frequently occur in adults, but MPS unique to childhood also exist. Such syndromes include juvenile chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), the MPS of monosomy 7 in childhood, familial chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), the transient MPS of infants with trisomy 21, and childhood forms of myelofibrosis. Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal domi...

Childhood cancer has been a growing problem in the United States with approximately 8,000 new cases reported annually for children under the age of 15. The first step in epidemiological studies of childhood cancer is usually to identify places with elevated rates. Past research placed particular emphasis on childhood cancer in children living near nuclear facilities. This study tests whether st...