Acute childhood leukaemia and environmental exposure to potential sources of benzene and other hydrocarbons; a case-control study

Abstract

Aim: To analyse the association between potential environmental exposure to hydrocarbons and the risk of acute childhood leukaemia. Methods: A hospital based multicentre case control study, stratified on centre, age, and sex, with 280 leukaemia cases and 285 controls was carried out. Data were collected by a standardised interview of the mothers. Results: No clear association was seen between maternal occupational exposure to hydrocarbons during pregnancy and leukaemia, or between residential traffic density and leukaemia. There was an association between dwellings neighbouring a petrol station or a repair garage during childhood and the risk of childhood leukaemia (OR 4.0, 95% CI 1.5 to 10.3), with a duration trend. The association, which appeared particularly strong for acute non-lymphocytic leukaemia (OR 7.7, 95% CI 1.7 to 34.3), was not altered by adjustment for potential confounding factors. Conclusions: Results showed an association between acute childhood leukaemia and dwellings neighbouring auto repair garages and petrol stations, which are benzene emitting sources. These findings could be due to chance, although the strength of the association and the duration trend are arguments for a causal association.

No Association between Traffic Density and Risk of Childhood Leukemia: a Meta-analysis

“…After undertaking a full-text review of the remaining 19 articles, a further eight were excluded from our analysis. Of these eight studies, three could not provide sufficient data to estimate an association between traffic density and the risk of leukemia (Harrison et al, 1999;Visser et al, 2004;Knox et al, 2006), two used duplicate data (London et al, 1991;Pearson et al, 2000), two did not provide a clear definition of traffic density (Steffen et al, 2004;Badaloni et al, 2013) and one did not use data from children (Nordlinder et al, 1997). Our final meta-analysis included 11 studies with a total of 12 estimates of effect (Savitz et al, 1989;Raaschou-Nielsen et al, 2001;Reynolds et al, 2001;Langholz et al, 2002;Crosignani et al, 2004;Von Behren et al, 2008;Bräuner et al, 2010;Amigou et al, 2011;Heck et al, 2013).…”

Incidence of hematologic malignancies in Europe by morphologic subtype: results of the HAEMACARE project

“…The childhood peak in LL/ALL is well known 1,2 and has been related to host susceptibility factors and response to antigens in early or prenatal life, 14 to exposure to electromagnetic fields, 15 or to exposure to benzene and other hydrocarbons from traffic during intrauterine life and childhood. 16 The hypothesis that children are more susceptible than adults to the carcinogenic effects of benzene deserves further investigation. 16 Paternal smoking has been significantly linked to childhood LL/ALL, Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia, and AML.…”

The effects of air pollution on the health of children

“…Studies are appearing in the literature identifying potential exposures and health effects (51)(52)(53). The effects of air pollutants on genetic material are being investigated (54,55).…”