State disease investigators could find no evidence linking an Air Force radar system in Bourne to an unusually high number of bone cancer cases among Cape Cod children, according to a report released last night.
Seven Cape children were diagnosed with a rare cancer called Ewing's family of tumors between 1995 and 2004, more than three times the number that would be expected based on national estimates, environmental health specialists from the Department of Public Health found.
Families of the children approached the state health agency and asked it to conduct an investigation, paying particular attention to whether emissions from the PAVE PAWS early warning radar system might have played a role. Cape residents have expressed concern repeatedly about the potential danger of radar emissions from the Massachusetts Military Reservation, fearing that there was a cancer cluster.
The centerpiece of the state's investigation was an effort to measure emission levels at cancer patients' homes and compare those readings with measurements taken at comparable houses with no incidence of bone cancer. If the readings were significantly higher at the patients' homes, then that would provide a strong clue that the radar might be to blame.
Instead, there was no difference, according to tests performed by a company hired by the state. Three of the children diagnosed with bone cancer actually lived in areas with some of the lowest radar emission levels, said Suzanne Condon, an associate commissioner of public health who presides over the state agency's environmental health branch.
Similarly, disease trackers established that the children stricken with cancer did not live especially close to one another, eliminating another piece of potentially telling evidence. Radar emission levels were measured at 31 sites on the Cape.
"All of this taken together helped us conclude that it was unlikely that PAVE PAWS was the smoking gun," Condon said.
The state report mirrored a series of earlier studies paid for by the Air Force that also concluded that the radar system was not responsible for increased leukemia and lung cancer death rates on the Upper Cape.
Condon met yesterday with the families of the children in their homes, at a restaurant, and at Dennis Town Hall to explain the contents of the report. The seven children whose cases were explored in the study are all alive, Condon said, but an eighth child, diagnosed in 2005, died from the disease.
Kenneth Leandre's son, Jordan, was diagnosed with bone cancer in April 2003 at the age of 2 1/2. After 11 months of chemotherapy and several surgeries, Jordan is now a healthy 7-year-old, his father said. "He's alive and well, and he's done with treatment, so we're blessed," said Leandre, who lives about 17 miles from the Air Force radar in South Dennis.
While he prizes his son's current health, the father said he desperately wanted to know why his son fell ill in the first place. So, when he heard about the results of the state study, "I was kind of shocked," he said. "I'm obviously disappointed, because you're looking for an answer - we're all looking for an answer."
As the state investigators conducted their study, they hunted for anything that might show a plausible link between the radar and the cases of Ewing's family of tumors. They were especially intrigued and concerned that five of the seven cases were diagnosed in less than a two-year period during 2003 and 2004.
The investigators wanted to know, for example, whether the children had spent most of their childhood on the Cape, a factor that might suggest prolonged exposure to the radar. Instead, they found that two of the children had lived on the Cape for less than a year prior to their diagnosis. "Thus," the report said, "it seems unlikely that these two individuals' diagnoses would be related to residency on Cape Cod."
A third child had lived on the Cape for about two years.
The state intends to closely monitor episodes of Ewing's family of tumors on Cape Cod, said Condon, who added that she derives some comfort knowing that a case of the disease has not been reported for two years.
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.
