A quest for seasonality in presentation of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

The literature on presentation of seasonality of leukaemia fails to provide clear conclusions. Using the Data Collection Study organised by the Leukae mia Research Fund (LRF) Centre for Clinical Epidemiology, University of Lee ds, this question was re-examined. This data has a high level of ascertainm ent and is population based. The results were mainly negative, there being no fit to a sinusoidal curve (Cosinor analysis) in any part of the data. Us ing normal approximation to Poisson there were individual months with posit ive findings. Such a method could not be specifically depended on to provid e reliable conclusions, nevertheless, further work in this area is justifie d. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was also examined but again with mainly negative findings.