O-271 Role of father’s occupational exposure in the genesis of childhood leukemia in unorganized sectors: a case-control study

Introduction

Due to industrial development, humans are exposed to more than 60,000 chemical substances. The majority of these substances are implicated in the genesis of cancers especially leukemias, in employees and even their descendants. We aim to identify father’s occupational factors implicated in the genesis of childhood acute leukemia in unorganized sectors.

Materials and Methods

Case-control study carried out between July 2011, and June 2012. Cases were children with a confirmed diagnosis of acute leukemia. Controls were children consulting in the pediatric department. One control was matched to each case for age and gender. A questionnaire on lifetime job history was administered to all the fathers.

Results

We enrolled 66 cases of acute leukemia and 66 controls. A predominance of boys was noticed (sex ratio: 1.53). The average age of the cases was 7.83 ± 3.48 years versus 7.80 ± 3.57 years for the controls. The diagnosis was an acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 59 patients (89.4%). The cases’ fathers had exercised mainly in the building and public works (24.2%) versus 16.7% in the control group; and in agriculture (15.2% versus 9.1%) without a statistically significant difference (p = 0.3). After multivariate analysis, childhood acute leukemia’s risk of occurrence was higher when fathers were exposed to pesticides (pa = 0.01, ORa =3.75, IC 95% = [1.27 – 11.03] and cement (pa = 0.03, ORa = 2.67, IC 95% = [1.06 – 6.7]. The majority of the cases’ fathers (72.7%) were exposed before and during their wives’ pregnancies versus 48.5% among the controls’ fathers with a statistically significant difference (p = 0.003).

Conclusion

The occupational risk factors in unorganized sectors might play a role in the etiopathogenesis of acute leukemia in descendants. With regard to our study, pesticides and cement seem to be most implicated and necessitate suitable preventive measures.