High birth weight and risk of specific childhood cancers: A report from the Children’s Cancer Group
Objectives: High birth weight has been associated with a number of childhood cancers. This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that elevated birth weight is associated with an increased risk of diagnosis-specific and age-specific groups of childhood cancers. Methods: A case-control study, usi...
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Published in | The Journal of pediatrics Vol. 131; no. 5; pp. 671 - 677 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, NY
Elsevier Inc
01.11.1997
Elsevier |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Objectives: High birth weight has been associated with a number of childhood cancers. This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that elevated birth weight is associated with an increased risk of diagnosis-specific and age-specific groups of childhood cancers.
Methods: A case-control study, using a large Children’s Cancer Group database, examined birth weight as a risk factor for childhood cancer. Birth weight information for the index child was available for 3711 cases and 816 control subjects.
Results: There was a statistically significant increased risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Wilms’ tumor, and neuroblastoma with increasing birth weight ( p, trend = 0.006, 0.003, and 0.001, respectively). A statistically significant decreased risk of cancer was observed for soft tissue sarcoma ( p, trend = 0.04). When data were stratified on the basis of age at diagnosis, many of these associations were apparent for children whose disease was diagnosed before the age of 2 years. Moreover, for acute myeloid leukemia, age at diagnosis was an important effect modifier. For children with acute myeloid leukemia whose disease was diagnosed before 2 years of age, there was a statistically significant increased risk with high birth weight (odds ratio = 2.5, 95% confidence interval 1.1 to 5.5); there was no increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia with high birth weight noted for children whose disease was diagnosed after 2 years of age (odds ratio 1.3, 95% confidence interval 0.8 to 2.2).
Conclusions: Biologic studies are needed to address why high birth weight may increase risk (particularly at younger ages) of development of certain cancers. (J Pediatr 1997;131:671-7) |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Case Study-3 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-4 content type line 23 ObjectType-Report-2 |
ISSN: | 0022-3476 1097-6833 |
DOI: | 10.1016/S0022-3476(97)70091-X |