Cancer In Young People Research Articles

Radium in drinking water and risk of bone cancer in Ontario youths: a second study and combined analysis.

Radium induces bone sarcomas at high doses, but there is controversy about risk at low doses. A previous study in Ontario found an association between the presence of radium in birthplace water supplies and an increased risk of death from bone cancer in young people. An investigation was performed to test the findings of the previous study with an independent group of subjects for whom complete information on radium exposure would be obtained. A population based case-control study (238 cases; 432 controls) was conducted with incident cases of bone sarcoma identified from the Ontario cancer registry. Residential histories were collected by questionnaire and water samples were obtained and analysed for radium content. There was an association between risk of osteosarcoma and birthplace exposures (odds ratios (ORs) and 90% confidence intervals (90% CIs) 1.77 (1.03-3.00) but not with lifetime measures of exposure. When lifetime exposure was dichotomised, the OR was 1.31 (0.76-2.24) for osteosarcoma. There was no trend with increasing exposure. Bootstrap resampling was used to simulate lifetime doses in a pooled analysis of 1293 subjects from the two Ontario studies. The ORs were 1.38 (1.08-1.73) for all sarcomas, and 1.44 (1.01-1.87) for osteosarcoma. Geometric mean doses in bone were about 26 mRad. An association was found between the presence of radium in birthplace water supplies and increased risk of bone sarcoma in two studies. Increased risk was present for lifetime measures of exposure, but the association was not significant, and there was no dose-response trend. Our findings are compatible with the absence of risk at low doses, but they might also reflect inadequate statistical power to measure a true risk at environmental exposure levels. If the increased risk at environmental doses is causal, risk of bone sarcoma is effectively linearly related to dose over five orders of magnitude.

Cancer in young people in the north of England, 1968-85: analysis by census wards.

To determine whether the seeming excess of childhood leukaemia and lymphoma identified in Seascale, Cumbria, UK, remains unusual when put into a wider context. Analysis of cancer incidence by geographical area. The north of England including the Northern and North Western Regional Health Authority regions and the Southport and South Sefton districts of the Mersey Regional Health Authority. Altogether 6686 cases of malignant disease in people under 25 years old. Cases of cancer diagnosed before their 25th birthday between January 1968 and December 1985 identified from three regional cancer registries were allocated to a census ward on the basis of 'usual place of residence'. Population data were derived from the 1971 and 1981 censuses, and the cancer incidence was calculated for each ward. Of the 6686 cases, there were 1035 cases of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and 361 of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Wards were ranked by cancer incidence and Poisson probability, using different population bases. Seascale ward is the most highly ranked ward for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia for the time periods 1968-85 or 1968-76. It is not the most highly ranked for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. However, combining acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and non-Hodgkins lymphoma incidence gives an even more extreme position for Seascale. The most extreme Poisson probability for any of the analyses was that for brain tumours in the electoral ward of Ashton St Michael, Tameside (p = 0.000009). The incidence of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and non-Hodgkins lymphoma in the Seascale ward remains high when put into a wider context. For other cancers there are wards with even more extreme Poisson probability values.

Colorectal carcinoma in young adults: an autopsy study.

Autopsy records of ten patients aged 40 or younger with colorectal carcinoma were reviewed. The local and metastatic spread of the cancer was similar to that seen in colorectal cancers occurring in older people. Colorectal cancer in young people is biologically not more aggressive or virulent than that in older patients.

Carcinoma of the Rectum in Adolescence

Colorectal cancer in young people has a poor prognosis because of presumed inherent biologic aggressiveness, but also because of failure to suspect the lesion early in its clinical course. Two adolescents with long-standing carcinoma of the rectum were treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Both had been treated for presumed benign anorectal disease for a prolonged period of time prior to referral.

The Role of X-Ray Therapy to the Neck Region in the Production of Thyroid Cancer in Young People. A Report of 37 Cases

The Role of X-Ray Therapy to the Neck Region in the Production of Thyroid Cancer in Young People. A Report of 37 Cases

The role of x-ray therapy to the neck region in the production of thyroid cancer in young people. A report of thirty-seven cases.

Duffy and Fitzgerald, 1 in 1950, first called attention to the frequent association of x-ray therapy to the thymus gland of infants to the later appearance of thyroid carcinoma. Subsequently many clinical reports have appeared, not only substantiating this association 2-8 but enlarging it to include any early irradiation received about the head and neck. Although these subsequent data have not provided definitive proof that a causal relationship exists between the two, they have indicated a sufficiently high frequency of occurrence to imply guilt by association. A history of previous irradiation, however, has not been found in all children with thyroid cancer, 9-13 and the possible fallacies of drawing too strong inferences of cause and effect between the one and the other have been pointed out. 13 Duffy 14 has recently summed up his experiences, and the present study, although not supplying unequivocal proof, is in agreement with his conclusion that the bulk of evidence

Bronchogenic carcinoma in young men

1. 1. In a study of bronchogenic carcinoma occurring in a group of thirty men less than forty years of age, it has been found that twenty-three, or 77 per cent, of the primary lesions were peripheral in location whereas only six, or 20 per cent, were situated in the lung-root zone. (One lesion was too extensive to warrant classification.) Twenty of the peripheral lesions were nodular in nature and only three produced atelectasis. 2. 2. In twenty-seven of the patients in whom the histology of the growths was established, there were eleven adenocarcinomas, eleven undifferentiated tumors and only five squamous cell cancers. 3. 3. The presenting symptom-patterns, bronchoscopic results and cytologic studies of the sputum were consistent with the high incidence of peripherally situated neoplasms. Twentytwo patients (73 per cent) described chest and/or shoulder pain, usually of a severe degree, eighteen (60 per cent) had cough, and only four had experienced hemoptysis. Seven patients had no pulmonary symptoms on admission. Bronchoscopy was performed in twenty-three individuals but yielded a positive diagnosis on only four occasions. Of fourteen patients whose sputum was studied cytologically, the findings were negative in twelve instances and suggestive of malignancy in two. 4. 4. Because of the inaccessibility of biopsy material, the diagnosis was established by exploratory thoracotomy in thirteen cases and by necropsy in four. 5. 5. The rapidity of growth and spread of pulmonary cancer in young people is reflected in a number of facts: seven patients had evidences of central nervous system metastases when first seen, eight had foci of tumor in peripheral lymph nodes and, although fourteen cases were subjected to exploration, the tumors in only six were resectable. This procedure was curative in no known case. The average duration of life from the onset of symptoms until death was fourteen months, but of greater significance in this comparatively small series was the median value of 7.5 months and the fact that only 25 per cent of the patients lived longer than a year. 6. 6. These observations, as a whole, represent a marked contrast to the manifestations of bronchogenic carcinoma in old people, and it is suggested that these variations represent the effect of different causal mechanisms.