Dr Catherine Metayer, University of California Berkeley

Dr Catherine Metayer and Professor Patricia Buffler, University of California Berkeley

A number of chromosomal abnormalities occur in children with leukaemia and these are used for diagnostic and prognostic purposes.

It has been shown that some of these abnormalities are present in the neonatal blood spots of the children with leukaemia, indicating that for many children the leukaemia was initiated before birth.

It is likely that the various subgroups of childhood leukaemia which are characterised by particular chromosomal abnormalities have different underlying causes.

If a risk factor is associated with only certain subgroups of leukaemia, any associations would be masked in a general study which looked at leukaemia as a whole.

In this study, Dr Metayer and colleagues will use data from the extensive Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study (NCCLS) to determine whether pre- or post-natal exposures to environmental chemicals from various sources (including domestic or occupational use of pesticides, paints, and solvents, and residential proximity to agricultural pesticide use and to traffic density) are associated with risk of particular chromosomal abnormalities in childhood leukaemia.

The NCCLS database provides access to almost 1,000 childhood leukaemia cases, with detailed genetic and environmental data putting the group in a unique position to disentangle the relationships between chemical exposures and different subgroups of childhood leukaemia.

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