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A cancer cluster is a disease cluster in which a high number of cancer cases occurs in a group of people in a particular geographic area over a limited period of time.Cancer Cluster FAQ
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Environmental Health, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects.
Historical examples of work-related cancer clusters are well documented in the medical literature. Notable examples include: scrotal cancer among
chimney sweep A chimney sweep is a person who clears soot and creosote from chimneys. The chimney uses the pressure difference caused by a hot column of gas to create a draught and draw air over the hot coals or wood enabling continued combustion. Chimneys ...
s in 18th century London;
osteosarcoma An osteosarcoma (OS) or osteogenic sarcoma (OGS) (or simply bone cancer) is a cancerous tumor in a bone. Specifically, it is an aggressive malignant neoplasm that arises from primitive transformed cells of mesenchymal origin (and thus a sarcoma) ...
among female watch dial painters in the 20th century; skin cancer in farmers;
bladder cancer Bladder cancer is any of several types of cancer arising from the tissues of the urinary bladder. Symptoms include blood in the urine, pain with urination, and low back pain. It is caused when epithelial cells that line the bladder become mal ...
in
dye A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...
workers exposed to
aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an industrially significant commodity chemical, as well as a versatile startin ...
compounds; and leukemia and lymphoma in chemical workers exposed to
benzene Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each. Because it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms ...
.Cancer Facts
. National Cancer Institute. U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Cancer cluster suspicions usually arise when members of the general public report that their family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers have been diagnosed with the same or related cancers. State or local health departments will investigate the possibility of a cancer cluster when a claim is filed. In order to justify investigating such claims, health departments conduct a preliminary review. Data will be collected and verified regarding: the types of cancer reported, numbers of cases, geographic area of the cases, and the patients clinical history. At this point, a committee of medical professionals will examine the data and determine whether or not an investigation (often lengthy and expensive) is justified. In the U.S., state and local health departments respond to more than 1,000 inquiries about suspected cancer clusters each year. It is possible that a suspected cancer cluster may be due to chance alone; however, only clusters that have a disease rate that is statistically significantly greater than the disease rate of the general population are investigated. Given the number of inquiries it is likely that many of these are due to chance alone. It is a well-known problem in interpreting data that random cases of cancer can appear to form clumps that are misinterpreted as a cluster. A cluster is less likely to be coincidental if the case consists of one type of cancer, a rare type of cancer, or a type of cancer that is not usually found in a certain age group. Between 5% to 15% of suspected cancer clusters are statistically significant.


Examples

Some of the larger or more well known cancer clusters include: * At least 700 cases of clear cell carcinoma caused by the prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol in the US in the mid-1900s. * The Camp Lejeune water contamination incident in which multiple chemicals were found in drinking water. The CDC found that marines stationed at the base had a 10% higher rate of cancer deaths than those stationed elsewhere.


See also

*
Biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...
* Cancer Alley *
Cancer epidemiology The epidemiology of cancer is the study of the factors affecting cancer, as a way to infer possible trends and causes. The study of cancer epidemiology uses epidemiological methods to find the cause of cancer and to identify and develop impro ...
* Cuzick–Edwards test *
Environmental racism Environmental racism or ecological apartheid is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionally placed in communities of colour. Internationally, it is also associated with ...
* '' Fooled by Randomness'' * Incidence *
Risk assessment Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of: # identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and # making judgments "on the t ...
* '' Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation'' *
Toxicology Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating exp ...


References


External links


Pub Med - latest standards for evaluating cancer clusters



National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)






{{Portal bar, Medicine Spatial epidemiology Medical statistics