The Professional Exposure of Parents as a Risk Factor in Infantile Leukemia

Abstract

Parental occupation has been studied as a potential cause of childhood leukemia. A review of 14 studies on this association shows contradictory results and does not prove clearly if this potential risk factor has an important role in disease production. They suggest, however, that parents? occupational exposure to various chemical products may have a weak effect on the incidence of childhood leukemia; this effect appears more consistent in the case of mother?s esposure. Moreover, methodologic aspects like the bias towards the null (due to non differential misclassification of exposure and disease) and the low power for risk detection (because of the low prevalence of the occupations and exposures studied) may be in part responsible for the few positive results obtained.