Mom's ulcer bug may up leukemia risk in offspring
Posted on: Friday, 14 October 2005, 12:50 CDT
By Will Boggs, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study for the first time hints that maternal infection with Helicobacter pylori -- the bacterium that causes most cases of stomach ulcers -- is associated with an increased risk of childhood leukemia in the offspring.
Leukemia makes up 25 percent of all childhood cancers worldwide and so-called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of the blood cancer, comprises about 80 percent of all childhood leukemias.
The fact that ALL tends to cluster in families and with "population mixing" suggests ties between infection and childhood leukemia, Dr. Matti Lehtinen from National Public Health Institute in Oulu, Finland and colleagues explain the American Journal of Epidemiology this month.
Lehtinen and colleagues used a cohort of 550,000 mothers and their offspring to study the role of H. pylori as well as two other common bacterial pathogens -- Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia pneumoniae -- in childhood leukemia. The subjects resided in Finland or Iceland.
Taken in isolation, neither M. pneumoniae nor Chlamydia was associated with an increased risk of childhood leukemia, the report indicates.
In contrast, the authors report, in the group from Iceland, having a mother test positive for H. pylori was associated with a 2.8-fold increased risk of childhood leukemia in the offspring. The risk was even higher (3.7-fold) when the analysis was restricted to Icelandic cases diagnosed before the age of 6 years, the results indicate.
In the group from Finland, however, H. pylori positivity was not associated with an increased childhood leukemia risk, the researchers note.
"To our knowledge," the authors conclude, "we have documented for the first time the possibility of an association between maternal H. pylori infection and risk of childhood leukemia in the offspring. Independent confirmatory studies are needed."
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology October 1, 2005.
Source: REUTERS
Related Articles
- Childhood Risk Factors For Developing Substance Dependence
- No Disparities by Race/Ethnicity in Risk of AIDS and Death Among HIV-Infected Patients in Kaiser Permanente's Integrated Delivery System, Research Study Finds
- National Health High Risk Pool Association Available to Discuss Role of Pools in President Elect Obamas Health Care Reform Plans
- New Whole Genome Homozygosity Association Method Uncovers Nine Genetic Risk Factors Associated With Schizophrenia
- Recent Steroid Therapy Increases Severity of Varicella Infections in Children With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
- The American Lung Association Increases Services and Support for Victims of Hurricane Katrina
- Parenteral Nutrition As a Risk Factor for Central Venous Catheter- Related Infection
- Relation of Chlamydia Pneumoniae Infection to Documented Coronary Artery Disease in Shiraz, Southern Iran
- Metabolic Syndrome Variables at Low Levels in Childhood Are Beneficially Associated With Adulthood Cardiovascular Risk: The Bogalusa Heart Study
- Maternal Nutritional Status and the Risk for Orofacial Cleft Offspring in Humans1,2
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds