Residential pesticides and childhood leukemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

It is a systematic review and meta-analysis of previous observational epidemiologic studies examining the relationship between residential pesticide exposures during critical exposure time windows (preconception, pregnancy, and childhood) and childhood leukemia. Searches of Medline and other electronic databases were performed (1950-2009). Study selection, data abstraction, and quality assessment were performed by two independent reviewers. Random effects models were used to obtain summary odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (Cis). Of the 17 identified studies, 15 were included in the meta-analysis. Exposures during pregnancy to unspecified residential pesticides insecticides, and herbicides were positively associated with childhood leukemia. Exposures during childhood to unspecified residential pesticides and insecticides were also positively associated with childhood leukemia, but there was no association with herbicides. Positive associations were observed between childhood leukemia and residential pesticide exposures. Further work is needed to confirm previous findings based on self-report, to examine potential exposure-response relationships, and to assess specific pesticides and toxicologically related subgroups of pesticides in more detail.

Risk Perceptions of Environmental Hazards and Human Reproduction: A Community-Based Survey

“…There is evidence that parental exposure to pesticides is associated with cancer in children [11,13,14] particularly childhood leukaemia [13,14]. Exposure to pesticides is also linked to several other cancers, birth defects, fetal death, and altered growth [9,12].…”

Workshop Report: Evaluation of Epidemiological Data Consistency for Application in Regulatory Risk Assessment

“…Defining, a priori, criteria for a "good" study, as well as possibly weighting those criteria, can be challenging. The use of quality criteria and a scoring framework in Turner et al [29] and Wigle et al [30] for assessment of epidemiological study data were discussed as case study examples, although it was noted that there was a movement away from use of quantitative scoring based on qualitative criteria in systematic reviews of clinical trials [31]. In practice, a single study rarely fulfills all of the chosen criteria, and it can be difficult to distinguish the failure of a study to fulfill a specific criterion from the failure of a report to provide enough details to allow the correct scoring of a specific criterion.…”

Computational Biology, Protein Engineering, and Biosensor Technology: a Close Cooperation for Herbicides Monitoring

“…Several studies conducted on farmer populations, or on people particularly exposed to herbicides found high rates of eyes stinging, rashes, blisters, blindness, nausea, dizziness, asthma, diarrhoea and even death, as examples of acute health effects (Senthilselvan et al, 1992). On the other hand, examples of chronic effects include cancer, birth defects, reproductive damage, neurological and developmental toxicity, immunotoxicity, and disruption of the endocrine system (Kristensen et al, 1997;Fukuyama et al, 2009;Schreinemachers 2010;Turner et al, 2010;Ochoa-Acuña et al, 2009;Tanner et al, 2009). Regarding neurological effects, herbicides can be potent neurotoxins.…”