- Full (HTML) - Full (PDF) - Related EHP Articles - Purchase This Issue

Ghislaine Scélo,¹ Catherine Metayer,¹ Luoping Zhang,¹ Joseph L. Wiemels,² Melinda C. Aldrich,³ Steve Selvin,¹ Stacy Month,⁴ Martyn T. Smith,¹ and Patricia A. Buffler¹

¹School of Public Health, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA; ²Laboratory of Molecular Epidemiology and ³Department of Medicine, University of California–San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA; ⁴Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, California, USA

Abstract
Background: Few studies have examined the association between home use of solvents and paint and the risk of childhood leukemia.

Objectives: In this case–control study, we examined whether the use of paint and petroleum solvents at home before birth and in early childhood influenced the risk of leukemia in children.

Methods: We based our analyses on 550 cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) , 100 cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) , and one or two controls per case individually matched for sex, age, Hispanic status, and race. We conducted further analyses by cytogenetic subtype. We used conditional logistic regression techniques to adjust for income.

Results: ALL risk was significantly associated with paint exposure [odds ratio (OR) = 1.65 ; 95% confidence interval (CI) , 1.26–2.15], with a higher risk observed when paint was used postnatally, by a person other than the mother, or frequently. The association was restricted to leukemia with translocations between chromosomes 12 and 21 (OR = 4.16 ; 95% CI, 1.66–10.4) . We found no significant association between solvent use and ALL risk overall (OR = 1.15 ; 95% CI, 0.87–1.51) or for various cytogenetic subtypes, but we observed a significant association in the 2.0- to 5.9-year age group (OR = 1.55 ; 95% CI, 1.07–2.25) . In contrast, a significant increased risk for AML was associated with solvent (OR = 2.54 ; 95% CI, 1.19–5.42) but not with paint exposure (OR = 0.64 ; 95% CI, 0.32–1.25) .

Conclusions: The association of ALL risk with paint exposure was strong, consistent with a causal relationship, but further studies are needed to confirm the association of ALL and AML risk with solvent exposure.

Key words: case–control study, children, leukemia, paint, petroleum, http://dx.doi.org/ [Online+10+October+2008]" rel="tag">solvents. Environ Health Perspect 117:133–139 (2009) . [Online 10 October 2008]

Address correspondence to G. Scélo, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 2150 Shattuck Ave., Suite 500, Berkeley, CA 94704-7380 USA. Telephone: (510) 642-6406. Fax: (510) 643-1735. E-mail: scelo@berkeley.edu

We thank the children and their families for their participation in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study, and clinical investigators at the collaborating hospitals for help in recruiting patients: University of California–Davis Medical Center (J. Ducore) , University of California–San Francisco (M. Loh and K. Matthay) , Children’s Hospital of Central California (V. Crouse) , Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (G. Dahl) , Children’s Hospital Oakland (J. Feusner) , Kaiser Permanente Sacramento (V. Kiley) , Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara (C. Russo and A. Wong) , Kaiser Permanente San Francisco (K. Leung) , and Kaiser Permanente Oakland (S. Month) . We also acknowledge the entire Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study staff and the Survey Research Center for their effort and dedication.

This study was supported by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grants P42-ES04705 and R01 ES09137 and Children with Leukaemia, U.K. grant 2006/052.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 11 July 2008 ; accepted 10 October 2008.