A study on the prevalence of cancer at autopsy in Chilean children with special reference to leukaemia, was made.
In a series of 15300 consecutive autopsies of Chileans, 70% of deceased patients had an autopsy. Of these 15300 cases (male:female ratio 1:0.92) 6431 were children (0--15 years of age); 90~o of deceased children patients had an autopsy.
The autopsy population of children and adults is a homogeneous ethnic group, and exhibits a low socioeconomic level. Data on the 6431 post-mortem examinations (1945--1966) came from the autopsy records of five hospitals (four of them are teaching hospitals) in the city of Santiago. Each one of the leukaemia and solid tumour cases were diagnosed microscopically.
In the children population, 54.92~o were males and 45.08~o were females. Of the 6431 autopsies, 142 exhibited cancer (2.21~o), 2.43~o being male cases and 1.93~o being female cases. The autopsy cases showed a marked excess of boys (73.92~o) and girls (69.77~o) under 1 year of age. The prevalence of major morphological groups of cancer was as follows: leukaemias 50.70~o, intracranial and other neural neoplasms 25.35~o, malignant lymphomas, including Hodgkin's disease, 14.07~o, and mixed malignant tumours (Wilms' tumour) 4.93~o. Acute leukaemias (42.96~o), medulloblastoma (7.65~o), Hodgkin's disease (6.34~o), Wilms' tumour (4.93~o), and lymphosarcoma (4.93~o) were the most prevalent types of cancer. Leukaemia cases had a corrected male: female ratio of 1 : 0.61. The prevalence of leukaemia in the autopsy population was 1.12~o.