Burkitt's lymphoma in the USA: cases reported to the American Burkitt Lymphoma Registry compared with population-based incidence and mortality data.

Since 1971, the American Burkitt Lymphoma Registry (ABLR) has been collecting clinical, epidemiological and laboratory data on patients with Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) diagnosed in the USA. Although the 256 confirmed ABLR cases have the advantage of uniform pathological review, the ABLR is a relatively 'passive' registry, with the majority of cases being submitted by interested physicians. To determine the pattern of BL in the USA on a population basis, we analysed incidence and survival data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Both SEER and NCHS data demonstrated a more marked predominance of BL in young males than had been found in the ABLR. All three sources of data revealed a broad age spectrum and a relative paucity of cases in the non-white US population. SEER data indicate that the overall incidence of BL in the USA was 1.4 per million for white males and 0.4 per million for white females during 1973-1981. The incidence rate for white males increased over time, perhaps owing to improvements in diagnosis and reporting.