Gabriella Tikellis1, Terence Dwyer1,2, Ora Paltiel3, Gary S Phillips4, Stanley Lemeshow5, Jean Golding6, Kate Northstone6, Andy Boyd6, Sjurdur Olsen7, Akram Ghantous8, Zdenko Herceg8, Mary H Ward9, Siri E Håberg10, Per Magnus10, Jørn Olsen11, Marin Ström7, Somdat Mahabir12, Rena R Jones9, Anne-Louise Ponsonby1, Jacqueline Clavel13, Marie Aline Charles13, Edwin Trevathan14, Zhengmin Min Qian15, Milena M Maule16, Xiu Qiu17, Yun-Chul Hong18, Silvia Brandalise19, Eve Roman20, Melissa Wake1, Jian-Rong He17,21, Martha S Linet22. 1. Population Epidemiology, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2. The George Institute for Global Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 3. Braun School of Public Health, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. 4. Center for Biostatistics, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. 5. Division of Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. 6. Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. 7. Centre for Fetal Programming, Department of Epidemiology Research, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark. 8. Epigenetics Group, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France. 9. Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. 10. Centre for Fertility and Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway. 11. Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark. 12. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, USA. 13. Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Statistics, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Villejuif, France. 14. Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. 15. College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. 16. Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Torino, Torino, Italy. 17. Division of the Birth Cohort Study, Department of Woman and Child Health Care, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China. 18. Institute of Environmental Medicine, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. 19. Boldrini Children's Center, Campinas, Brazil. 20. Epidemiology and Cancer Statistics Group, Health Sciences, York University, York, UK. 21. Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 22. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Childhood cancer is a rare but leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Established risk factors, accounting for <10% of incidence, have been identified primarily from case-control studies. However, recall, selection and other potential biases impact interpretations particularly, for modest associations. A consortium of pregnancy and birth cohorts (I4C) was established to utilise prospective, pre-diagnostic exposure assessments and biological samples. METHODS: Eligibility criteria, follow-up methods and identification of paediatric cancer cases are described for cohorts currently participating or planning future participation. Also described are exposure assessments, harmonisation methods, biological samples potentially available for I4C research, the role of the I4C data and biospecimen coordinating centres and statistical approaches used in the pooled analyses. RESULTS: Currently, six cohorts recruited over six decades (1950s-2000s) contribute data on 388 120 mother-child pairs. Nine new cohorts from seven countries are anticipated to contribute data on 627 500 additional projected mother-child pairs within 5 years. Harmonised data currently includes over 20 "core" variables, with notable variability in mother/child characteristics within and across cohorts, reflecting in part, secular changes in pregnancy and birth characteristics over the decades. CONCLUSIONS: The I4C is the first cohort consortium to have published findings on paediatric cancer using harmonised variables across six pregnancy/birth cohorts. Projected increases in sample size, expanding sources of exposure data (eg, linkages to environmental and administrative databases), incorporation of biological measures to clarify exposures and underlying molecular mechanisms and forthcoming joint efforts to complement case-control studies offer the potential for breakthroughs in paediatric cancer aetiologic research.
BACKGROUND: Childhood cancer is a rare but leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Established risk factors, accounting for <10% of incidence, have been identified primarily from case-control studies. However, recall, selection and other potential biases impact interpretations particularly, for modest associations. A consortium of pregnancy and birth cohorts (I4C) was established to utilise prospective, pre-diagnostic exposure assessments and biological samples. METHODS: Eligibility criteria, follow-up methods and identification of paediatric cancer cases are described for cohorts currently participating or planning future participation. Also described are exposure assessments, harmonisation methods, biological samples potentially available for I4C research, the role of the I4C data and biospecimen coordinating centres and statistical approaches used in the pooled analyses. RESULTS: Currently, six cohorts recruited over six decades (1950s-2000s) contribute data on 388 120 mother-child pairs. Nine new cohorts from seven countries are anticipated to contribute data on 627 500 additional projected mother-child pairs within 5 years. Harmonised data currently includes over 20 "core" variables, with notable variability in mother/child characteristics within and across cohorts, reflecting in part, secular changes in pregnancy and birth characteristics over the decades. CONCLUSIONS: The I4C is the first cohort consortium to have published findings on paediatric cancer using harmonised variables across six pregnancy/birth cohorts. Projected increases in sample size, expanding sources of exposure data (eg, linkages to environmental and administrative databases), incorporation of biological measures to clarify exposures and underlying molecular mechanisms and forthcoming joint efforts to complement case-control studies offer the potential for breakthroughs in paediatric cancer aetiologic research.
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Authors: Meredith O'Connor; Margarita Moreno-Betancur; Sharon Goldfeld; Melissa Wake; George Patton; Terence Dwyer; Mimi L K Tang; Richard Saffery; Jeffrey M Craig; Jane Loke; David Burgner; Craig A Olsson Journal: Int J Epidemiol Date: 2022-10-13 Impact factor: 9.685
Authors: Deven M Patel; Rena R Jones; Benjamin J Booth; Ann C Olsson; Hans Kromhout; Kurt Straif; Roel Vermeulen; Gabriella Tikellis; Ora Paltiel; Jean Golding; Kate Northstone; Camilla Stoltenberg; Siri E Håberg; Joachim Schüz; Melissa C Friesen; Anne-Louise Ponsonby; Stanley Lemeshow; Martha S Linet; Per Magnus; Jørn Olsen; Sjurdur F Olsen; Terence Dwyer; Leslie T Stayner; Mary H Ward Journal: Int J Cancer Date: 2019-05-24 Impact factor: 7.316