NDCA

March 12, 2008

One type of cancer is double N.J. rate

Sarcoma cases in Toms River

By LAUREN O. KIDD
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

The incidences of childhood cancer that occurred in Toms River from 2001 through 2005 were on par with what was expected to occur in a township of its size in New Jersey, but the diagnosis of one certain class of cancer — soft tissue sarcoma — was more than twice the expected rate, a state Department of Health and Senior Services analysis found.

The analysis compared the number of cases observed and how they occurred here with the number of cases expected to occur in a population of the township’s size over that period. Toms River’s population was about 93,000 in 2004, according to the U.S. Census.

Incidences of soft tissue sarcoma — defined by the National Cancer Institute as “a cancer that begins in the muscle, fat, fibrous tissue, blood vessels, or other supporting tissue of the body” — were more than double the expected rate, according to the study.

Four Toms River children were diagnosed with soft tissue sarcomas between 2004 and 2005. Three of those children are girls, which is statistically more than five times as many girls than would be expected to be diagnosed with the disease, Jerald A. Fagliano, program manager for consumer and environmental health with the Department of Health and Senior Services, told the Toms River Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster Monday.

Three of the diagnosed children also live in the section of the township that used to be known as the village of Toms River before then-Dover Township changed its name in 2006, he said.

“Chance is not the likely explanation, but it could be for that difference,” Fagliano said of the cause of the high number of soft tissue sarcomas.

Fagliano presented a summary of the study findings to the committee. A full report on the findings should be released next month, he said.

Overall, the analysis found 26 cases of childhood cancer diagnosed in Toms River residents up to the age of 19 during the five-year period between 2001 and 2005. The rate to be expected is 22.8 cases, meaning there were 1.1 times more cases in Toms River than expected, which is not statistically significant, according to Fagliano.

The study is just the latest to be launched since residents began observing a high number of children diagnosed with cancer in Toms River in the mid-1980s.

A previous study of the elevated childhood cancer levels in Toms River began in 1996 and was completed in 2001.

That study found that exposure to contaminated drinking water from United Water Toms River’s Parkway well field and to polluted air from the former Ciba-Geigy Superfund site was associated with leukemia development in young girls, but no links between environmental pollutants and leukemia development in boys or nervous system cancers in male or female children were found.

Researchers have stressed repeatedly, however, that the limited number of cases included in that study makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about causes. Both United Water Toms River’s Parkway well field and Ciba-Geigy plant were closed in the mid-1990s.

The most recent study found that the number of cases of childhood leukemia was less than what would be expected, while the number of brain and central nervous system cancers was slightly higher than expected, but not statistically significant.

Linda Gillick, chairwoman of the committee, said the data on leukemia are “great,” but the data of the elevated soft tissue sarcomas are troubling.

“We need to go and talk to the families and see if they have anything in common,” she said.

Fagliano recommended that the state continue to monitor the number of children diagnosed with cancer in Toms River. He said that so far, the state is not aware of any cases of soft tissue sarcoma diagnosed in 2006, 2007 or 2008, but he stressed that the data are preliminary.

“We are going to continue to watch,” he told the committee.

Gillick and others, though, pushed for the state to ask questions of the families of diagnosed children to find similarities in their cases.

“These parents want answers,” Gillick said.

Fagliano said that the state could gather information, but “the question is whether it will be meaningful in any way.”

Gillick noted that representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection and federal Environmental Protection Agency and area legislators were invited to the meeting but failed to attend.

The state is in the process of starting a study into incidences of childhood cancer throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties, according to Fagliano.