Project

Objectives

The main objective of the GEOCAP program, based on the National Childhood Cancer Registry, is to study the influence of environmental exposures on the risk of childhood cancer. This work is based on the address of the residence of the cases at the time of diagnosis and on their location near the sources of exposure or in relation to an exposure map. A secondary objective is to estimate the exposure of the general population of pediatric age to these different factors.

Methods

GEOCAP is a national case-control study in the general population.

The cases are all children under the age of 15, diagnosed with a cancer or a benign brain tumor since 2002, residing in mainland France at the time of diagnosis.

The controls are children (5,000/year) randomly selected by INSEE from the tax database in order to be representative of children under 15 residing in metropolitan France

Inclusions 2002-2013 
Leukaemias  6 184
Lymphomas  2 889
Central nervous system tumours  5 428
Sympathetic nervous system tumours  1 732
Retinoblastomas  591
Renal tumours  1 202
Liver tumours 224
Bone tumours 1 077
Soft-tissue sarcomas 1 429
Germ-cell tumours  889
Carcinomas 906
Total cases 22 594
Controls 60 000
    • Geocoding

The addresses were geolocated using information from the IGN’s BD Address® database (version 2.2), supplemented by information from Google Streetview, the Geoportal, Google Maps, the cadastre and the Mappy.fr site for the most complex situations. Lambert 93 coordinated geocoding was carried out by the company Géocible using the same methodology for cases and controls over the entire period and blinded to the status of case-controls.

    • Exposure assessment

Exposures are estimated in terms of distances from the source (nuclear power plants, power lines, roads) or source density around the home (roads, crops). They are also estimated from exposure models (ionizing radiation due to discharges from nuclear power plants, ionizing radiation of natural origin, magnetic fields generated by high voltage lines, air pollution linked to traffic).

Regulatory aspects : CNIL GD/CE072347. Receipt GEOCAP-AGRI 2077682 v 0.

Collaborators : IRSN, RTE, Santé publique France

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