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Review
. 2015 Feb;62(1):11-25.
doi: 10.1016/j.pcl.2014.09.013. Epub 2014 Oct 18.

Genetic and nongenetic risk factors for childhood cancer

Logan G Spector  1 , Nathan Pankratz  2 , Erin L Marcotte  3
Affiliations
Review

Genetic and nongenetic risk factors for childhood cancer

Logan G Spector et al. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2015 Feb.

Abstract

The causes of childhood cancer have been systematically studied for decades, but apart from high-dose radiation and prior chemotherapy there are few strong external risk factors. However, inherent risk factors including birth weight, parental age, and congenital anomalies are consistently associated with most types of pediatric cancer. Recently the contribution of common genetic variation to etiology has come into focus through genome-wide association studies. These have highlighted genes not previously implicated in childhood cancers and have suggested that common variation explains a larger proportion of childhood cancers than adult. Rare variation and nonmendelian inheritance may also contribute to childhood cancer risk but have not been widely examined.

Keywords: Case-control studies; Epidemiology; Etiology; Genome-wide association studies; Pediatric cancer.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Incidence rate per million for International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC) categories by 5-year age groups
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Incidence rates per million for International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC) categories by sex.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Incidence rates per million for International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC) categories by race/ethnicity. AI/AN, American Indian/Alaska Native; As/Pacl, Asian/Pacific Islander.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Boxplot of SNV odds ratios from GWAS of cancer by age group. Dark horizontal lines represent the median and the box represents the 25th and 75th percentiles. (From Raynor LA, Pankratz N, Spector LG, et al. An analysis of measures of effect size by age of onset in cancer genomewide association studies. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2013;52(9): 857; with permission.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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