Neoplasm and traumatic events in childhood.

Previous research has suggested that certain objectively defined traumatic events occurring in childhood and/or adolescence may be linked to the appearance of neoplasm later in life. The present report examines four such events-parental death, parental divorce, sibling death, and having been the youngest child for less than two years-for their frequency of occurrence within four groups of physician subjects classified according to current health status as follows: major cancer, skin cancer, benign tumor, and healthy controls. All data had been collected while the subjects were in medical school within the context of a long-term, prospectively oriented study. Major cancer subjects were also compared with their cancer-free siblings with respect to length of time spent as youngest child. Although there was a slight tendency for the trend of the findings to be in accord with the hypotheses tested, no statistically significant differences among groups could be demonstrated.