Maternal use of antibiotics and cancer in the offspring: results of a case-control study in Germany

Objective As previous results were inconsistent, we assessed the association between maternal use of antibiotics during pregnancy or 3 months before conception and childhood cancer in the offspring in a large case-control study in Germany. Methods This population-based study on potential risk factor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cancer causes & control 2010-08, Vol.21 (8), p.1335-1345
Main Authors: Kaatsch, Peter, Scheidemann-Wesp, Ulrike, Schüz, Joachim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Anti-Bacterial Agents - administration & dosage
Anti-Bacterial Agents - adverse effects
Antibiotics
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Cancer
Cancer Research
Case-Control Studies
Child
Child, Preschool
Childhood
Children
Epidemiology
Female
Germany - epidemiology
Hematology
Humans
Infections
Leukemia
Lymphoma
Maternal Exposure
Medications
Myeloid leukemia
neoplasms
Neoplasms - epidemiology
Neoplasms - etiology
Oncology
Original Paper
Pregnancy
Prenatal exposure
Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects
Public Health
Retrospective Studies
Risk Factors
Self report
Tumors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective As previous results were inconsistent, we assessed the association between maternal use of antibiotics during pregnancy or 3 months before conception and childhood cancer in the offspring in a large case-control study in Germany. Methods This population-based study on potential risk factors for childhood cancer was conducted by the German Childhood Cancer Registry (GCCR) and included a total of 1,867 registered cancer cases aged 0-14, diagnosed between October 1992 and September 1994. A total of 2,057 controls were randomly drawn from population registries, matched by age, gender, and region. Conditional logistic regression models for frequency-matched datasets were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results Positive statistically significant associations with self-reported maternal antibiotic use were observed for acute lymphoid leukemia (based on 59 mothers exposed to antibiotics, OR = 1.47; 95% CI: 1.06-2.04), acute myeloid leukemia (18 exposed, OR = 3.21; 95% CI: 1.83-5.62), and Burkitt lymphoma (three exposed, OR = 5.89; 95% CI: 1.47-23.69), but not other cancer types. Conclusions The results provide some support for the hypothesis that maternal use of antibiotics increases the risk of cancer in the offspring. Although recall bias is a concern, it is unlikely that this fully explains the observed effect. Further, the observed associations might be related to the underlying infections.
ISSN:0957-5243
1573-7225
DOI:10.1007/s10552-010-9561-2