Parental Occupational Pesticide Exposure and Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Abstract

Parental Occupational Pesticide Exposure and Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic LeukemiaAbstract Number:2286 Robert Gunier*, Alice Kang, Katharine Hammond, Suzanne Lea, Patricia Quinlan, Kyndaron Reinier, Monique Does, and Catherine Metayer Robert Gunier* University of California, Berkeley, United States, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Alice Kang University of California, Berkeley, United States, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Katharine Hammond University of California, Berkeley, United States, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Suzanne Lea East Carolina University, United States, E-mail Address: [email protected] Search for more papers by this author , Patricia Quinlan University of California, San Francisco Search for more papers by this author , Kyndaron Reinier Cedars-Sinai, United States Search for more papers by this author , Monique Does University of California, Berkeley, United States Search for more papers by this author , and Catherine Metayer University of California, Berkeley, United States Search for more papers by this author AbstractBackground: Most studies investigating the association between parental occupational pesticide exposure and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have relied on job titles.Methods: Children diagnosed with ALL (n=669) and age-, sex, race-matched controls (n=1,021) were enrolled in the California Childhood Leukemia Study (2000-2008). We assessed parental pre- and postnatal occupational pesticide exposure using job-title (JT) and corresponding occupational codes from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as detailed task-based job modules (JM) and corresponding expert rating. We used unconditional logistic regression to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for parental occupational pesticide exposure adjusting for child’s sex, age, ethnicity, and household income.Results: The overall specificity of occupational pesticide exposure using JT compared to JM was 94-95% and the sensitivity was 70-77% in both cases and controls. The use of JT to assess paternal postnatal occupational pesticide exposure and risk of ALL resulted in an OR=0.9 (95% CI: 0.6, 1.2); in contrast, the use of JM resulted in ORs equal to 1.5 (95% CI = 1.0, 2.2) and 1.7 (95% CI: 1.1, 2.5) for pre- and postnatal exposure, respectively. Risk of ALL was only elevated in children diagnosed at four years of age or younger, with an OR=2.2 (95% CI: 1.3, 3.9) for postnatal paternal exposure. Maternal occupational pesticide exposure was not associated with ALL during the prenatal or postnatal period. Risk estimates were nearly identical among Hispanic and non-Hispanic children, and were very similar using conditional logistic regression.Conclusions: We observed an increased risk of childhood ALL with paternal occupational pesticide exposure assessed using task-based JM, but not JT. In this study, the use of JT instead of JM resulted in exposure misclassification and underscores the importance of improved exposure assessment.