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UNRECOGNIZED OR POTENTIAL RISK FACTORS FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER
Citation:
van Larebeke, N., L S. Birnbaum, M. Boogaerts, M. Bracke, D. L. Davis, D M. DeMarini, K. Hooper, J. E. Huff, J. Kleinjans, M. S. Legator, G. Schoeters, AND K. Vahakangas. UNRECOGNIZED OR POTENTIAL RISK FACTORS FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH. Abel Publication Services, Burlington, NC, 11(2):199-201, (2005).
Impact/Purpose:
To explore the importance of environmental exposures in the causation of childhood cancers
Description:
Traditional epidemiological studies suggest that the contribution of environmental agents to childhood cancer may be minor. However, epidemiological methods can only seldom identify causal factors associated with a relative risk of less than a factor of one and a half to two. Approximately 10% of chemical substances have some carcinogenic potency in animals and possibly in humans. Children are at risk of exposure to over 15,000 high-production-volume chemicals and are certainly exposed to many carcinogens. The individual impact of most of these agents is too small to be detected. Collectively, however, these unrecognized factors make a potentially important contribution. Infants and children are exposed to higher levels of some environmental toxicants and may also be more sensitive. During intra-uterine development and childhood, cells divide frequently and the mutant frequency rises rapidly. Endocrine-related cancers or susceptibility to cancer may result from developmental exposures rather than from exposures existing at or near the time of diagnosis. That environmental exposures may be important in the causation of childhood cancers is implicated by observations on associations of enzyme polymorphisms with risk.