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Maternal Pregnancy Loss, Birth Characteristics, and Childhood Leukemia (United States)

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Abstract

Objective: The authors evaluated the relation between maternal pregnancy loss, birth characteristics, and childhood leukemia in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study.

Methods: Incident cases of childhood leukemia (age 0–14 years) were rapidly ascertained, and controls were randomly selected from birth records and individually matched to cases. A total of 366 cases [313 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 53 acute myeloid leukemia (AML)] and 460 controls were included in this analysis. The biological mothers of all subjects provided detailed reproductive history and birth characteristics of the index children during a personal interview. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using conditional logistic regression. Data on maternal pregnancy loss and birth characteristics were also available from the birth certificates of 96.3% of all subjects.

Results: History of miscarriage was associated with a significantly increased risk of AML (OR = 2.94, 95% CI: 1.03, 8.34), but not ALL. Neither birth weight, birth order, or parental ages appeared to be an important predictor of the risk of ALL or AML. A comparison between data from two different sources (interview versus birth certificate) indicated good reproducibility and offered some evidence against recall bias.

Conclusion: Maternal history of miscarriage is associated with an increased risk of childhood AML.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, 60 College St., New Haven, CT, 06520-8034, USA

    Xiaomei Ma

  2. School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Catherine Metayer, Monique B. Does & Patricia A. Buffler

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  1. Xiaomei Ma
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  2. Catherine Metayer
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  3. Monique B. Does
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  4. Patricia A. Buffler
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Correspondence to Xiaomei Ma.

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Ma, X., Metayer, C., Does, M.B. et al. Maternal Pregnancy Loss, Birth Characteristics, and Childhood Leukemia (United States). Cancer Causes Control 16, 1075–1083 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-005-0356-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-005-0356-9

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