Incidence of leukaemia in young people around the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing plant: a sensitivity analysis.

The objectives are to investigate the incidence of childhood leukaemia in young people around the French nuclear waste reprocessing plant (La Hague, Normandy) for the period 1978-1992, and to check the sensitivity of the results to the choice of disease clustering tests and reference rates. The performance of three statistical procedures are compared: a conventional approach; a Poisson maximum test, and an extraction mapping technique. On the whole, the results are in general agreement and demonstrate the apparent existence of a distinct cluster of childhood leukaemia, contiguous and south-east of the La Hague nuclear facility.

[1]  A B Lawson,et al.  Applications of extraction mapping in environmental epidemiology. , 1993, Statistics in medicine.

[2]  D Wartenberg,et al.  Solving the cluster puzzle: clues to follow and pitfalls to avoid. , 1993, Statistics in medicine.

[3]  D. Black,et al.  Investigation of the possible increased incidence of cancer in West Cumbria , 1984 .

[4]  G J Draper,et al.  Cancer in Cumbria and in the vicinity of the Sellafield nuclear installation, 1963-90. , 1993, BMJ.

[5]  B W Turnbull,et al.  The effects of scale on tests for disease clustering. , 1993, Statistics in medicine.

[6]  Jean-François Viel,et al.  Childhood leukemia incidence in the vicinity of La Hague nuclear-waste reprocessing facility (France) , 1993, Cancer Causes & Control.

[7]  J F Bithell,et al.  On statistical methods for analysing the geographical distribution of cancer cases near nuclear installations. , 1989, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[8]  Richard Doll,et al.  The Epidemiology of Childhood Leukaemia , 1989 .

[9]  P A McKinney,et al.  Leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: incidence in children and young adults resident in the Dounreay area of Caithness, Scotland in 1968-91. , 1994, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[10]  James Cutler,et al.  CANCER IN CUMBRIA: THE WINDSCALE CONNECTION , 1984, The Lancet.

[11]  A J Hall,et al.  Results of case-control study of leukaemia and lymphoma among young people near Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria. , 1990, BMJ.

[12]  M. Gardner,et al.  MORTALITY IN CUMBERLAND DURING 1959-78 WITH REFERENCE TO CANCER IN YOUNG PEOPLE AROUND WINDSCALE , 1984, The Lancet.

[13]  J. Viel,et al.  Childhood leukaemia around the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing plant. , 1990, BMJ.

[14]  Jack Cuzick,et al.  Geographical and environmental epidemiology : methods for small-area studies , 1997 .

[15]  A. Lawson.  On the analysis of mortality events associated with a prespecified fixed point. , 1993, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A,.

[16]  V. Beral.  Childhood leukemia near nuclear plants in the United Kingdom: the evolution of a systematic approach to studying rare disease in small geographic areas. , 1990, American journal of epidemiology.

[17]  R. A. Stone.  Investigations of excess environmental risks around putative sources: statistical problems and a proposed test. , 1988, Statistics in medicine.

[18]  M. Gardner,et al.  Follow up study of children born to mothers resident in Seascale, West Cumbria (birth cohort). , 1987, British medical journal.

[19]  R E LaPorte,et al.  Ascertainment corrected rates: applications of capture-recapture methods. , 1993, International journal of epidemiology.

[20]  M. Hills,et al.  Statistical methods used in assessing the risk of disease near a source of possible environmental pollution: a review , 1989 .

[21]  Andrew B. Lawson,et al.  Armadale: A Case‐Study in Environmental Epidemiology , 1994 .

[22]  M. Bobrow,et al.  Committee on medical aspects of radiation in the environment (COMARE) : second report, investigation of the possible increased incidence of leukaemia in young people near the Dounreay Nuclear Establishment, Caithness, Scotland , 1988 .

[23]  S. C. Darby,et al.  Geographical variation in mortality from leukaemia and other cancers in England and Wales in relation to proximity to nuclear installations, 1969-78. , 1989, British Journal of Cancer.