BMC Cancer 2008, 8:355 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/8/355 Authors' contributions HZ, OR and JS conceived the study. JS coordinated the study. CS performed the survival analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. CS and PK provided the data. JS, OR and HZ participated in the design of the study and the data analysis. All authors helped to draft the manu- script and read and approved it in its final form. Additional material Additional file 1 Diagnosis distribution and proportion of cases with Turkish descent by ICCC-3. Listed are all ICCC-3 groups and all subgroups with at least 10 cases of Turkish descent. Click here for file [http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/supplementary/1471- 2407-8-355-S1.doc] Additional file 2 5-year survival probabilities for cancers of children with and without Turkish descent, German Childhood Cancer Registry 1980–2005, by ICCC-3 groups. Follow up of cases until 31.12.2006 or until loss to fol- low up. Listed are all ICCC-3 groups and subgroups with at least 5 deaths among cases with Turkish descent. Click here for file [http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/supplementary/1471- 2407-8-355-S2.doc] Additional file 3 5-year survival probabilities for cancers of children with and without Turkish descent, German Childhood Cancer Registry 1980–2005 by time period of diagnosis. Follow up of cases until 31.12.2006 or until loss to follow up. Listed are all ICCC-3 groups and all subgroups with at least 5 deaths among cases with Turkish descent per time period. Click here for file [http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/supplementary/1471- 2407-8-355-S3.doc] Acknowledgements We thank Mrs Bremensdorfer, GCCR, for her support in data linkage, and Nazan Uluzoy for her diligent work in manually reviewing names in the GCCR. We thank Prof. Dr. med. Martin Schrappe, University Hospital Kiel, and Prof. Dr. med. 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