STUDY OBJECTIVE To assess spatial clustering of childhood leukaemias and lymphomas in New Zealand, using a national dataset from a country with no nuclear installations. DESIGN New Zealand Map Grid coordinates, derived from the birth addresses of cases and controls were used in clustering analyses that applied Cuzick and Edwards' method. SETTING The whole of New Zealand. PARTICIPANTS The ...

background: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (all) is the most common form of childhood cancer leading to cancer-related death in children. most infants with all harbor recurring structural chromosomal rearrangements that are important initiating events in leukemogenesis but are insufficient to explain the biology and heterogeneity of the disease. mixed-lineage leukemia-rearrangement (mll-rearrange...

1 of 2 DESCRIPTION A 20-year-old girl with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in second remission for 4 years, presented with blurring of vision and binocular diplopia for 2 months duration. Examination revealed isolated left 6th cranial nerve palsy. Fundus showed swollen both optic disc and fan-shaped macular star suggestive of papilloedema. CT scan and MRI of brain revealed no space occupying lesi...

In an attempt to see if buffy coat smear examination might be an alternative to bone marrow aspiration for predicting relapse, 98 consecutive bone marrow aspirates from 96 children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia were examined blind with buffy coat and peripheral blood from the same patients. The 28 bone marrow aspirates from children no longer on treatment were all normal, and routine aspir...

Studies of the presenting height of children with malignancies have produced conflicting results, from an excess of taller patients to an excess of shorter patients. The problems of measurement bias, inadequate comparison populations, small numbers of patients, subgroup analyses, and overreliance on simple significance tests are all possible reasons for the variation in results. To clarify this...

The serotonin (5HT3) antagonist ondansetron was compared in a randomised study with metoclopramide and dexamethasone for the prevention of chemotherapy induced emesis. Thirty children aged 1-15 years with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia received 'intensification modules' according to the MRC United Kingdom acute lymphoblastic leukaemia regimen UKALL XI. This contains the moderately emetogenic dru...

Although the experience of siblings of paediatric patients has received very little attention, the work that does exist indicates that there are significant problems and that the topic needs further exploration. As a contribution to furthering this area of research, the present paper presents findings on siblings experience from a study examining the impact of the diagnosis and treatment for ch...

In a population based series of 4070 children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia treated in Britain during 1971-82, the five year survival rate improved from 37% for those treated in 1971-3 to 66% in 1980-2. During the same period there was an increase in the proportion of children included in the Medical Research Council trials and an increase in the proportion who were treated at centres with...

A six-year-old boy, a known case of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) on remission since 1991 presented with leukocoria and poor vision of the left eye for two days' duration. Examination revealed endophthalmitis in the left eye with raised intraocular pressure. Anterior chamber paracentesis with vitreous biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of ocular involvement. Further investigation revealed that ...

A child born with severe combined immunodeficiency, who was immunoreconstituted by a fetal liver and thymus transplant, developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in the donor cell line. During remission she contracted acute Q fever, which gave rise to unexpected complications. Early treatment of the Q fever might have altered the subsequent events and prevented her death.