Does infection cause or prevent childhood leukaemia?

In 2008 we published 'Does infection cause or prevent childhood leukaemia? A review of the scientific evidence.'

Speculations concerning a link between infections and childhood leukaemia were first published as long ago as the 1920s.

Observations showed that the age distribution of the disease was similar to that of common childhood infectious diseases. Many of the children with leukaemia had a record of infections around the time of diagnosis.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital postulated that 'the solution to the problem of leukaemia lies rather in some peculiar reaction to infection than in the existence of some specific infective agent’. Others believed that a specific infection was involved.

The connection between leukaemia and infection fell out of favour until the 1980s when links between other human blood cell cancers and infections were made. The discovery that leukaemias in domestic cattle, cats and chickens were also viral in origin further contributed to the re-emergence of infection hypotheses in childhood leukaemia.

Three main hypotheses
There are now three main hypotheses concerning the possible role played by infection in childhood leukaemia:

1. infectious exposure during pregnancy or around the time of birth increases the risk of childhood leukaemia;
2. the absence of infectious exposure during the first two years of life affects the development of the immune system and increases the risk of leukaemia following subsequent infectious exposure;
3. unusual patterns of population mixing introduce a new infection to previously unexposed populations and childhood leukaemia is an unusual result of such an infection. 

"Does Infection Cause or Prevent Childhood Leukaemia?"(650kb. New window will open)

View two BBC news clips on how daycare 'cuts leukaemia risk': View BBC news clip featuring Dr Adrienne Morgan (New window will open) View BBC news clip featuring Dr Patricia Buffler (New window will open)

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