Abstract
BackgroundThis nationwide study investigated associations between paternal occupational exposure and childhood bone tumours and soft- tissue sarcomas.MethodsThe UK National Registry of Childhood Tumours provided cases of childhood sarcomas born and diagnosed in Great Britain, 1962–2010. Control births, unaffected by childhood cancer, were matched on sex, birth period and birth registration sub-district. Fathers’ occupations were assigned to one or more of 33 exposure groups and coded for occupational social class.ResultsWe analysed 5,369 childhood sarcoma cases and 5380 controls. Total bone tumours, total soft-tissue sarcomas and the subgroups osteosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and Ewing Sarcoma Family of Tumours (ESFT) were considered separately. Significant positive associations were seen between rhabdomyosarcoma and paternal exposure to EMFs (odds ratio = 1.67, CI = 1.22–2.28) and also for ESFT and textile dust (1.93, 1.01–3.63). There were putative protective effects on total bone tumours of paternal dermal exposure to hydrocarbons, metal, metal working or oil mists.ConclusionsDespite the large size and freedom from bias of this study, our results should be interpreted with caution. Many significance tests were undertaken, and chance findings are to be expected. Nevertheless, our finding of associations between ESFT and paternal exposure to textile dust may support related suggestions in the literature.
Highlights
Childhood cancers are rare diseases and sarcomas account for a little over 10% of them (1)
We found no support for an equivalent association previously reported for chondrosarcoma
We found an elevated risk of ESFT in offspring of men exposed to textile dusts
Summary
Childhood cancers are rare diseases and sarcomas account for a little over 10% of them (1). The causes of childhood sarcomas are very incompletely understood but, as with other childhood cancers paternal occupational exposures have been mooted as a possible cause (2-5). In the present paper we report a case-control study to investigate paternal occupational exposures as an aetiological factor in childhood sarcomas using data from the UK National Registry of Childhood Tumours. In this introduction we give more background information about our data sources and about the diseases under study. In particular we outline what is known about their aetiology. Since this is unknown for most cases, interest in aetiological factors remains high. Any reported positive associations provide prior hypotheses for testing in this or future studies
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