Childhood malignancies in French Polynesia during the 1985-1995 period.

We report an estimation of the incidence of childhood cancer among natives of French Polynesia (FP) during the 1985-1995 period. Our data were acquired from the Cancer Registry of FP and through an extensive investigation of other potential sources of information. The mean population of children between 1985 and 1995 was estimated to be 63 401 inhabitants, 32 487 of whom were boys and 30 914 girls, born and residing in FP. During the 1985-1995 period, 87 incident cases of childhood cancer were recorded among inhabitants born in FP or of an unknown place of birth (n = 2). Childhood cancer incidence had attained 125 cases/million child years and was very similar among girls (126 x 10(-6)) and boys (123 x 10(-6)), this incidence being slightly lower than among other populations of similar ethnic origin: Standardized Incidence Ratio (SIR) = 0.8 (95% CI: 0.7-1.0) when compared with New Zealand Maoris and SIR = 0.8 (95% CI: 0.6-1.0) when compared with natives from Hawaii. For both sexes considered together, the most frequent cancer type was leukaemia, followed by central nervous system (CNS) malignancies, neuroblastoma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Only one case of gonadal and germ cell tumours and one case of carcinoma were reported. Childhood cancer incidence was predominant among children living in the Windward, Leeward and Marquesas Islands and the Tuamotu-Gambier archipelago, but lower in the Austral Islands. The incidence of acute non-lymphocytic leukaemia (ANLL) decreased from 3.3 x 10(-5) between 1985 and 1989, an unexpectedly high incidence, to 0.8 x 10(-5) between 1990 and 1995.