Trends in infant leukaemia in West Germany in relation to in utero exposure due to Chernobyl accident.

A temporary increase in the incidence of infant leukaemia in Greece was reported by Petridou et al., which was attributed to in utero exposure to ionising radiation resulting from the Chernobyl accident. We performed a similar analysis based on the data of the German Childhood Cancer Registry in order to check whether the observation could be confirmed by means of independent data. Applying the same definitions as Petridou et al., we also observed an increased incidence of infant leukaemia in a cohort of children born after the Chernobyl accident. More detailed analyses, regarding areas with different contamination levels and dose rate gradients over time after the accident, showed, however…

Epidemiologie von Hirntumoren im Kindesalter

The German Childhood Cancer Registry (GCCR) was established in 1980. From 1980 to 1997 4,447 CNS tumours in children below 15 years of age have been reported to the registry. From 1988 to 1997 the average annual incidence was 2.5/100,000 children. This corresponds to 19.2% of the registered diseases. Compared with incidence rates reported from other developed countries one can estimate that there is about 25% underreporting of CNS tumours in the GCCR. This is in contrast to the relatively complete ascertainment of other childhood malignancies (above 95%). Based on 3012 incident cases from 1988 to 1997 the Kaplan-Meier-estimate of 5-year-survival probability is 65% for all CNS tumours and 54…

Infant leukaemia after the Chernobyl accident