Kids cancer knows no class barriers.

Children in Canada's poorest neighbourhoods are less likely to get leukemia than those in richer neighborhoods. Otherwise, the children of the poorest neighborhoods were neither more nor less likely to get cancer than those in the affluent areas.

For most types of cancer, the study found no statistically significant differences in relative risk in the poorest one-fifth of neighbourhoods, compared to the richest one-fifth. A somewhat lower risk in the lowest income neighbourhoods was also found for carcinomas and renal tumours.

The study, "Socioeconomic status and childhood solid tumor and lymphoma incidence in Canada," was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, June 2006. It is based on data from Canada's 10 provincial cancer registries. The data was analyzed by researchers from the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Statistics Canada and the Electric Power Research Institute.

The report supports a 2005 study that also found that children in Canada's poorest neighbourhoods were less likely to get leukemia than those in the richest neighbourhoods.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org