Changes in Mortality Rates from Leukemia in the First Five Years of Life

Abstract

SEVERAL writers have called attention to a recent change in the shape of the age curve of leukemia mortality under five years of age. Before 1920 in England and Wales and 1940 in the United States this "curve" was an approximately horizontal line. In later periods, in both countries, a peak has appeared in the group from three to four years of age and has become more pronounced with the passage of time. This peak has not appeared in rates for nonwhites in the United States,¹ nor is it evident in data from Japan.² It has been suggested that a . . .