Temporal-Spatial Distribution of Leukemia and Lymphoma in Connecticut

Summary

With a recently developed statistical technique based on combinatorial methods/ cases of leukemia and lymphoma diagnosed among Connecticut residents during 1945–59 were tested for the presence of 1- and 2-year clusters within towns. The method had previously been found very powerful in detecting the case-clustering of poliomyelitis and infectious hepatitis. The leukemia cases, both childhood and all ages, showed no tendency to occur in 1- or 2-year clusters. The lymphoma (all ages) cases tended to cluster. When cases of leukemia and lymphoma were combined as if they had a common etiology, a result consistent with a hypothesis of no clustering was obtained.