Parental Tobacco Smoking and Acute Myeloid Leukemia: The Childhood Leukemia International Consortium

Catherine Metayer*, Eleni Petridou, Juan Manuel Mejía Aranguré, Eve Roman, Joachim Schüz, Corrado Magnani, Ana Maria Mora, Beth A. Mueller, Maria S.Pombo De Oliveira, John D. Dockerty, Kathryn McCauley, Tracy Lightfoot, Emmanouel Hatzipantelis, Jérémie Rudant, Janet Flores-Lujano, Peter Kaatsch, Lucia Miligi, Catharina Wesseling, David R. Doody, Maria MoschoviLaurent Orsi, Stefano Mattioli, Steve Selvin, Alice Y. Kang, Jacqueline Clavel, Juan Carlos Nuñez-Enriquez, Elva Jiménez-Hernández, Rogelio Paredes-Aguilera

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

The association between tobacco smoke and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is well established in adults but not in children. Individual-level data on parental cigarette smoking were obtained from 12 case-control studies from the Childhood Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC, 1974-2012), including 1,330 AML cases diagnosed at age <15 years and 13,169 controls. We conducted pooled analyses of CLIC studies, as well as meta-analyses of CLIC and non-CLIC studies. Overall, maternal smoking before, during, or after pregnancy was not associated with childhood AML; there was a suggestion, however, that smoking during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk in Hispanics (odds ratio = 2.08, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.20, 3.61) but not in other ethnic groups. By contrast, the odds ratios for paternal lifetime smoking were 1.34 (95% CI: 1.11, 1.62) and 1.18 (95% CI: 0.92, 1.51) in pooled and meta-analyses, respectively. Overall, increased risks from 1.2- to 1.3-fold were observed for pre- and postnatal smoking (P < 0.05), with higher risks reported for heavy smokers. Associations with paternal smoking varied by histological type. Our analyses suggest an association between paternal smoking and childhood AML. The association with maternal smoking appears limited to Hispanic children, raising questions about ethnic differences in tobacco-related exposures and biological mechanisms, as well as study-specific biases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)261-273
Number of pages13
JournalAmerican Journal of Epidemiology
Volume184
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Aug 2016

Bibliographical note

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

Keywords

  • acute myeloid leukemia
  • childhood cancer
  • international collaboration
  • parental smoking

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