engleski

Global geographic clustering of childhood cancer in Croatia

Childhood cancer is second leading cause of death in children 1-14 years of age in developed countries. Mortality rates, high treatment-related morbidity and its considerable social and financial impact make childhood malignancy important public health issue. Furthermore, its unknown etiology makes it even more fearful disease causing concern in public perception. In order to contribute to the clarification of childhood cancer occurrence in Croatia we conducted nationwide clinical data survey of childhood cancer cases registered at pediatric oncology departments in 2001-2015 and examined spatial epidemiology at the county level. For disease mapping we used spatial data from Central register of spatial units (State geodetic administration). Population under risk in investigated period has been estimated by linear interpolation/extrapolation of 2001 and 2011 population censuses data (Croatian bureau of statistics). Global and regional age- specific incidence rates, age-standardized rates and standardized incidence ratios were calculated. ArcGIS Desktop 10.5 software has been used for creation of initial maps of diseases and data aggregation by spatial units. Exploratory spatial data analysis has been performed by GeoDa 1.12 software tool. Presence of global clustering has been examined by Pearson’s chi square and Potthoff-Whittinghill statistics as implemented in DCluster 0.2-7 package for R. Results suggested possibility of global clustering of embryonal tumors in Croatia and necessity of higher resolution investigation of childhood cancer incidence.

Childhood cancer ; global clustering ; Croatia

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