Parental occupational exposure to metals and risk of cancer in the offspring: a register-based case-control study from Sweden
Menée en Suède à partir de données portant sur les parents d'enfants atteints d'un cancer diagnostiqué sur la période 1960-2015, cette étude analyse l'association entre une exposition professionnelle des parents à l'arsenic, au cadmium, au chrome, au nickel ou au plomb et le risque, pour l'enfant, de développer la maladie
Résumé en anglais
Background: Cancer risks in the offspring of mothers and fathers exposed to metals are unknown. We estimated relative risks of childhood cancer, overall and by type, associated with parental occupational exposure to arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, and lead.
Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study (1960–2015) of children born in Sweden aged 0–19 years diagnosed with cancer (National Cancer Register) matched 25:1 to controls on birth year and sex. We obtained parental occupational data around their birth from censuses and a nationwide register and identified exposure to each metal (yes/no, or higher/lower/no exposure) using the Swedish job-exposure matrix (SWEJEM). Adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated separately for maternal and paternal exposures using conditional logistic regression.
Results: We compared 9653 cases to 172194 controls in maternal and 12521 cases to 274434 controls in paternal analyses, respectively. We found a 38% increased risk of cancer associated with maternal occupational exposure to arsenic (OR 1.38 [95% CI 1.06, 1.82]), likely driven by higher risks for lymphoma (OR 1.52 [0.73, 3.15]), CNS (OR 1.49 [0.88, 2.54]) and other solid malignancies (OR 1.74 [1.14, 2.65]). There were also indications of higher risks of lymphoma in children of mothers exposed to nickel and iron, and of CNS tumors due to chromium exposure. No associations were observed from paternal occupational exposure to any of the metals.
Conclusions: We found evidence of increased risks of cancer in children of mothers but not fathers occupationally exposed to arsenic and potentially other metals.
