Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 May;35(5):1258-1264.
doi: 10.1038/s41375-021-01211-7. Epub 2021 Apr 9.

Can we prevent childhood Leukaemia?

Mel Greaves  1 , Valeria Cazzaniga  2 , Anthony Ford  2
Affiliations
Review

Can we prevent childhood Leukaemia?

Mel Greaves et al. Leukemia. 2021 May.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. The two-hit model for B cell precursor ALL.
Initiating genetic lesions are primarily ETV6-RUNX1 or hyperdiploidy, probably occurring as developmental accidents. They arise in utero possibly in foetal liver early B lineage lymphopoiesis [78]. Secondary mutations are primarily RAG-mediated copy number alterations. ~1% figure: ALL is initiated in utero at a rate that exceeds by 100-fold, the incidence of disease indicating a low penetrance and a critical role for factors promoting chronic inflammation and the secondary mutations. Adapted from [7]. See text for references.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Environmental, life exposures that source and impact on the infant microbiome.
Of the five critical factors, three (✓ in figure) have been implicated as risk factors in B cell precursor ALL. Birth route—vaginal versus caesarean. Note: diet and antibiotics also impact on the composition of the microbiome but those two variables have not been systematically evaluated for impact on the risk of ALL.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Al-Lazikani B, Banerji U, Workman P. Combinatorial drug therapy for cancer in the post-genomic era. Nat Biotechnol. 2012;30:679–92. - PubMed
    1. Gatenby RA, Silva AS, Gillies RJ, Frieden BR. Adaptive therapy. Cancer Res. 2009;69:4894–903. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Acar A, Nichol D, Fernandez-Mateos J, Cresswell GD, Barozzi I, Hong SP, et al. Exploiting evolutionary steering to induce collateral drug sensitivity in cancer. Nat Commun. 2020;11:1923. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Greaves M. Evolutionary determinants of cancer. Cancer Discov. 2015;5:806–20. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Thun MJ, DeLancey JO, Center MM, Jemal A, Ward EM. The global burden of cancer: priorities for prevention. Carcinogenesis. 2010;31:100–10. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources