A comparative ecological study of selected cancers in Kanawha County, West Virginia

This study compares mortality rates for selected causes of death in Kanawha County, West Virginia, to rates reported in a number of geographically defined populations for 1950-1984. Specific conditions selected for study included cancers of the biliary passages and liver, the bladder and other urinary organs, and the central nervous system (CNS), as well as leukemia and aleukemia, lymphosarcoma and reticulosarcoma, Hodgkin's disease, and cancer of all other lymphopoietic tissue. The analysis made use of several techniques for the investigation of ecological data, including the modeling of rates using Poission regression. The primary findings of this study concern two subgroups of cancers of the lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue: (1) leukemia and aleukemia, and (2) lymphosarcoma and reticulosarcoma. For both subgroups of cancers, white male residents of Kanawha County show evidence of significantly elevated mortality rates over the 35-year period of this study.