The effect of prenatal factors on the development of colon cancer

There is some evidence that prenatal factors can play a role in the development of colon cancer. Children with an old parent age at the time of birth were observed to develop certain childhood cancers more frequently.

This trial was designed to investigate the effects of some prenatal factors on colon cancer risk. Particularly, investigation of the effect of advanced parent age on colon cancer development risk was targeted.

In this study 117 in or out patients diagnosed with colon cancer and 234 control subjects were included. Definitive diagnostic results and dates of diagnosis were determined from pathological reports. Groups were asked for the parent age, smoking habits, sociodemographic, environmental, familial and reproductive traits. The results were compared between the patients and the control group.

It was determined that children may have higher risk if mother and father are more than 30 at birth (p = 0.018, p = 0.020). While the mean mother age at birth was 25.6 +/- 5.72 in patients, it was 24.7 +/- 6.90 in the controls. The difference was not statistically significant (p < 0.056). The mean father age at birth was 29.4 +/- 6.58 in patients and 27.4 +/- 7.47 in the controls. The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.001). Smoking of mother was one of the important risk factors of colon cancer (p = 0.044).

Our data supports that some prenatal factors such as high parental age at birth and mother -smoker may be risk factors for some cancers in children. This is the first study to report that high parental age at birth and exposure to smoke prenatally increase the risk or colon cancer (Tab. 7, Ref. 28).