Share:
Study exhaust gases increase the leukemia risk in children
Car exhaust fumes can damage your health - that much has been known for a long time. But especially for children these are obviously particularly dangerous. Because if they grow up near motorways or motorways, there is up to 100 percent higher risk of leukemia, according to a recent Swiss study. As the researchers report, especially infants are affected.
More than 200 children and adolescents suffer from cancer every year
Children usually rarely get cancer. However, as the University of Bern reports, every year more than 200 children and adolescents under the age of 16 are affected in Switzerland. Cancers are the most important cause of death in children after accidents, with leukemia and brain tumors the most common. Why so many young people in Switzerland are affected by cancer has not yet been clarified. However, it has long been suspected that in addition to a genetic predisposition, various environmental factors such. air pollution could play a central role.
Car exhaust emissions harm our children. Image: Rasulov - fotolia Researchers match census data with pediatric cancer registry
Researchers at the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of Bern (ISPM) have now confirmed this assumption. According to a team led by Ben Spycher and Claudia Kuehni from ISPM have shown that exhaust gases increase the risk of childhood leukemia, the university reports. For their study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers used data from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Registry (SCCR) and the Swiss National Cohort (SNC), which recorded more than two million census children (1990 and 2000). From the Children's Cancer Registry, the researchers also filtered all registered cancer diagnoses in children under the age of 16 in the period 1985-2008. Finally, they compared the anonymous data from the SCCR and the SNC and were able to identify which children were affected.
It was followed by an investigation into whether children living near motorways or motorways are at higher risk for cancer than other peers. For this purpose, they divided the residences of the children at the time of the census into different distance groups (less than 100 meters, 100 to 250 meters, 250 to 500 meters and over 500 meters from the nearest highway or road) and similar to the number of leukemia Cases in the respective areas. In a further investigation step, the scientists used the census data to estimate how many "person years" or calendar years were experienced by all children resident in Switzerland in the various residential areas between 1985 and 2008. Subsequently, they also compare the registered cases of leukemia per person-years between the distance groups.
Almost 50 percent increased risk of living near the highway
Both methods yielded very similar results, according to Ben Spycher and Claudia Kuehni. Thus, in the distance category less than 100 meters, the first method showed a 47% increase in the leukemia risk compared to their peers who lived more than 500m away from the nearest highway or highway. The second method even resulted in a 57 percent increased risk for the children of the first group.
"In this distance category, 0- to 4-year-olds especially at risk Since this only crystallized out for leukemia, possibly benzene could be considered as cause, so the assumption of the researchers. Because it is already known that an increased exposure to the substance in the workplace in adults could cause leukemia. "Several studies from other countries also found evidence of an increased leukemia risk in children growing up near busy roads," explains Kuehni. (No)
However, the evaluation by age group showed that the risk increase is limited to 0- to 4-year-old babies or infants. "In this age group, the risk of leukemia at a place of residence within 100 meters of a highway was about twice as high as a distance of the apartment of 500 meters or more," says Ben Spycher. In the other distance categories as well as other cancers such as e.g. Brain tumors and lymphoma, however, the researchers could detect no increased risk.