For more than 20 years, organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), primarily chlordecone, were used in Martinique to control the banana weevil. Scientific uncertainties regarding the health consequences for humans of chronic exposure to OCPs have raised significant medical and social concerns in the French West Indies. In this context, a cancer incidence study was conducted by the Cancer Registry and the Unit of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance in the French West Indies and French Guiana region. The objectives of this study were: 1) to examine the spatial distribution of cancer cases potentially linked to pesticide exposure; 2) to test for a possible association between the spatial distribution of these cancers and potential population exposure. A literature review was used to identify cancers whose occurrence could be linked to pesticide exposure in both adults and children. Cancer incidence data were obtained from the Martinique Cancer Registry for the period 1981–2000. The Martinique population’s exposure to POPs was estimated by mapping areas potentially contaminated with chlordecone, as established by the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research. Only the spatial distribution of multiple myeloma incidence shows a specific geographic pattern in relation to potential exposure to POPs. For all other cancer sites studied, no specific spatial distribution was identified; however, this does not rule out the possible existence of an association with POPs. (R.A.)