Parental occupational exposure to low-frequency magnetic fields and risk of leukaemia in the offspring: findings from the Childhood Leukaemia International Consortium (CLIC)
Talibov, Madar ; Olsson, Ann ; Bailey, Helen ; Erdmann, Friederike ; Metayer, Catherine ; Magnani, Corrado ; Petridou, Eleni ; Auvinen, Anssi ; Spector, Logan ; Clavel, Jacqueline ; Roman, Eve ; Kang, Alice ; Cardis, Elisabeth ; Schüz, Joachim
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
2019
76
10
746-753
leukaemia ; children ; electromagnetic fields ; parental exposure ; myelogenous leukaemia ; case control study
Medicine - Toxicology - Health
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2019-105706
English
Bibliogr.;Statistics
"Objectives
Previously published studies on parental occupational exposure to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) and risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in their offspring were inconsistent. We therefore evaluated this question within the Childhood Leukemia International Consortium.
Methods
We pooled 11 case–control studies including 9723 childhood leukaemia cases and 17 099 controls. Parental occupational ELF-MF exposure was estimated by linking jobs to an ELF-MF job-exposure matrix (JEM). Logistic regression models were used to estimate ORs and 95% CIs in pooled analyses and meta-analyses.
Results
ORs from pooled analyses for paternal ELF-MF exposure >0.2 microtesla (µT) at conception were 1.04 (95% CI 0.95 to 1.13) for ALL and 1.06 (95% CI 0.87 to 1.29) for AML, compared with ≤0.2 µT. Corresponding ORs for maternal ELF-MF exposure during pregnancy were 1.00 (95% CI 0.89 to 1.12) for ALL and 0.85 (95% CI 0.61 to 1.16) for AML. No trends of increasing ORs with increasing exposure level were evident. Furthermore, no associations were observed in the meta-analyses.
Conclusions
In this large international dataset applying a comprehensive quantitative JEM, we did not find any associations between parental occupational ELF-MF exposure and childhood leukaemia."
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