Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
The observance of nonrandom space-time groupings of childhood cancer has been a concern of health professionals and the general public for decades. Many childhood cancers are suspected to have initiated in utero; therefore, we examined the spatial-temporal randomness of the birthplace of children who later developed cancer.Methods
We performed a space-time cluster analysis using birth addresses of 5,896 cases and 23,369 population-based, age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity-matched controls in California from 1997 to 2007, evaluating 20 types of childhood cancer and three a priori designated subgroups of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We analyzed data using a newly designed semiparametric analysis program, ClustR, and a common algorithm, SaTScan.Results
We observed evidence for nonrandom space-time clustering for ALL diagnosed at 2-6 years of age in the South San Francisco Bay Area (ClustR P = 0.04, SaTScan P = 0.07), and malignant gonadal germ cell tumors in a region of Los Angeles (ClustR P = 0.03, SaTScan P = 0.06). ClustR did not identify evidence of clustering for other childhood cancers, although SaTScan suggested some clustering for Hodgkin lymphoma (P = 0.09), astrocytoma (P = 0.06), and retinoblastoma (P = 0.06).Conclusions
Our study provides evidence that childhood ALL diagnosed at 2-6 years and malignant gonadal germ cell tumors sporadically occurs in nonrandom space-time clusters. Further research is warranted to identify epidemiologic features that may inform the underlying etiology.
SUBMITTER: Francis SS
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9005107 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Francis Stephen Starko SS Enders Catherine C Hyde Rebecca R Gao Xing X Wang Rong R Ma Xiaomei X Wiemels Joseph L JL Selvin Steve S Metayer Catherine C
Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) 20200301 2
<h4>Background</h4>The observance of nonrandom space-time groupings of childhood cancer has been a concern of health professionals and the general public for decades. Many childhood cancers are suspected to have initiated in utero; therefore, we examined the spatial-temporal randomness of the birthplace of children who later developed cancer.<h4>Methods</h4>We performed a space-time cluster analysis using birth addresses of 5,896 cases and 23,369 population-based, age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity- ...[more]