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Incidence and Characteristics of Childhood Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in Greece: A Nationwide Study (Greece)

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Abstract

Objectives To estimate the incidence and epidemiological profile of childhood (0–14 years) Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Greece derived by the network of childhood Hematology–Oncology departments on the basis of all 95 newly diagnosed cases during a seven-year period.

Methods Seventy-one of these cases were individually age and gender matched to an equal number of controls.

Results The incidence of childhood Hodgkin Lymphoma reached a relatively high figure of 7.8 per million children-years, with an age distribution (2.2 for children 0–4; 6.3 for those 5–9 and 13.9 for those 10–14-years-old) and male to female ratio (1.7:1) similar to that reported from other cancer registries. Childhood Hodgkin’s lymphoma was more common among children living in less crowded quarters (odds ratio (OR): 6.5 and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI): 1.4–30.7), among those who have changed residence 60 to 18 months before the onset of the index disease (OR: 4.4, and 95% CI = 1.4–14.0), among those whose families owned a cat (OR: 5.5, 95% CI = 1.2–25.6) but not among those whose families owned a dog and marginally more common, among those with a history of infectious mononucleosis (OR: 5.0, 95% CI = 0.6–42.8).

Conclusions Our results point to infectious agent(s) as playing an etiological role but do not allow discrimination among the delayed establishment of the herd immunity hypothesis, the population mixing hypothesis or that invoking transmission of the agent(s) from the non-human reservoir.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the children and the guardians who participated in this study for their valuable contribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Athens University Medical School, 75 Mikras Asias str., Goudi Athens, 11527, Greece

    E. Petridou, E. Andrie, N. Dessypris & S. K. Dikalioti

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    E. Petridou & D. Trichopoulos

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  1. E. Petridou
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  2. E. Andrie
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  3. N. Dessypris
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  4. S. K. Dikalioti
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  5. D. Trichopoulos
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The Childhood Hematology–Oncology Group

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Correspondence to E. Petridou.

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The Childhood Hematology–Oncology Group.

Maria Moschovi, Hematology–Oncology Unit, First Department of Pediatrics, Athens University Medical School, ‘Aghia Sophia’ General Children’s Hospital, Athens, Greece

Fani Athanassiadou- Piperopoulou, 2nd Department of Pediatrics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, AHEPA General Hospital, Greece

Sophia Polychronopoulou, Department of Pediatric Hematology–Oncology, ‘Aghia Sophia’ General Children’s Hospital Athens, Greece

Apostolos Pourtsidis, Department of Pediatric Hematology–Oncology, ‘Pan.&Agl. Kyriakou’ Children’s Hospital Athens, Greece

Maria Kalmanti, Department of Pediatric Hematology–Oncology, University Hospital of Heraklion, Heraklion, Greece

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Petridou, E., Andrie, E., Dessypris, N. et al. Incidence and Characteristics of Childhood Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in Greece: A Nationwide Study (Greece). Cancer Causes Control 17, 209–215 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-005-0409-0

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