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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Nevada State Health Division have just published a mini-monograph in the January 2007 issue of Environmental Health Perpsectives entitiled "Investigating Childhood Leukemia in Churchill County Nevada (Environ Health Perspec (2007) 115:151-157).
In this summary report, the scientists involved in the investigation review all the steps taken, the myriad data collected and the exhaustive analyses done to elucidate the underlying cause(s) of acute leukemia that affected sixteen children in this community who were diagnosed between 1997 and 2002. This investigation used many tools and integrated information from multiple sources--including epidemiology, medical and exposure history, toxicology, medical chemistry, infectious agents, and genetic markers--to result in the most comprehensive investigation of a pediatric leukemia cluster ever undertaken.
The scientists, the care providers, the families of affected children and the other residents of Churchill County gave it all that they had to find the answer to this perplexing problem. Even with their very best effort and employing all that modern science has to offer, the conclusions as to what caused these cancers in some of the children in this community remain frustratingly elusive. When all was said and done, the authors conclude that they are officially stumped and offer this not very satisfying denouement to their study:
Although the cases in this cancer cluster may in fact have a common etiology, their small number and the length of time between diagnosis and our exposure assessment lessen the ability to find an association between leukemia and environmental exposures. Given the limitations of individual cancer cluster investigations, it may prove more efficient to pool laboratory and questionnaire data from similar leukemia clusters.
Comments
I clearly understand the frustration of medical personal trying to find solutions and answers to leukemia in children. It is very difficult to see them suffering, but it is also amazing to see the numbers and their capacity to recover.
Posted by: Gab | May 20, 2008 3:18 PM