Statistics in Medicine · 1996 · 204 citations · 0 references
The study of disease clustering is becoming increasingly common in the field of medical epidemiology. There is great public concern and numerous reports on perceived clusters of various diseases, and with cancers, and especially leukaemia, being the most commonly studied. We present a population based study on acute childhood leukaemia in Sweden 1973-1993, illustrating the possibility of a system for full-scale spatial epidemiological study design. The aim of the study is to test a large set of childhood leukaemia cases for the presence of geographical clusters. Necessary prerequisites, in the form of extensive population and disease data, a tool for geographical spatial analysis and a proper statistical method were fulfilled. No significant clusters were found.