Maternal factors and risk of childhood leukemia

Although the cause in most cases of childhood leukemia is not known, the contribution of environmental risk factors in the context of genetic predisposition has been reported with inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to examine association of childhood leukemia with maternal factors especially during pregnancy, to help in avoiding risk factors.

This case-control study included children younger than 18 years diagnosed with leukemia from 2008 to 2012. Controls were randomly selected and individually matched to cases with respect to age, sex, and residency. All variables were compared between cases and control to determine any significant association with leukemia.

Statistically significant associations between risk of childhood leukemia with mother's education (p=0.001), occupation (p=0.0005) and pesticides exposure (p=0.005) during pregnancy were found. However, there were no significant links with maternal age (p=0.090), history of fetal loss (0.85), history of radiography during pregnancy (p=0.400), history of drug intake (p=0.689) and infection (p=0.696) during pregnancy.

The results showed increased risk of leukemia in children whose mothers were working in agriculture and were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy. The further study needs to be investigated to know association of various maternal risk factors with leukemia which remained unknown in this study.