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01-11-2015 | Original paper

Birth order and risk of childhood cancer in the Danish birth cohort of 1973–2010

Authors: Joachim Schüz, George Luta, Friederike Erdmann, Gilles Ferro, Andrea Bautz, Sofie Bay Simony, Susanne Oksbjerg Dalton, Tracy Lightfoot, Jeanette Falck Winther

Published in: Cancer Causes & Control | Issue 11/2015

Abstract

Purpose

Many studies have investigated the possible association between birth order and risk of childhood cancer, although the evidence to date has been inconsistent. Birth order has been used as a marker for various in utero or childhood exposures and is relatively straightforward to assess.

Methods

Data were obtained on all children born in Denmark between 1973 and 2010, involving almost 2.5 million births and about 5,700 newly diagnosed childhood cancers before the age of 20 years. Data were analyzed using Poisson regression models.

Results

We failed to observe associations between birth order and risk of any childhood cancer subtype, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia; all rate ratios were close to one. Further analyses stratified by birth cohort (those born between 1973 and 1990, and those born between 1991 and 2010) also failed to show any associations. Considering stillbirths and/or controlling for birth weight and parental age in the analyses had no effect on the results. Analyses by years of birth (those born between 1973 and 1990, and those born between 1991 and 2010) did not show any changes in the overall pattern of no association.

Conclusions

In this large cohort of all children born in Denmark over an almost 40-year period, we did not observe an association between birth order and the risk of childhood cancer.

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Title: Birth order and risk of childhood cancer in the Danish birth cohort of 1973–2010
Authors: Joachim Schüz
George Luta
Friederike Erdmann
Gilles Ferro
Andrea Bautz
Sofie Bay Simony
Susanne Oksbjerg Dalton
Tracy Lightfoot
Jeanette Falck Winther
Publication date: 01-11-2015
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Published in: Cancer Causes & Control / Issue 11/2015
Print ISSN: 0957-5243
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7225
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-015-0651-z

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Purpose

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