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Review
. 2025 Jan 23;17(3):370.
doi: 10.3390/cancers17030370.

Prenatal and Perinatal Factors Associated with Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia: A Scoping Review

Arantza Sanvisens  1   2 , Clara Bueno  3   4   5 , Oriol Calvete  6 , Francesc Solé  6 , Rafael Marcos-Gragera  1   2   7 , Marta Solans  2   7   8
Affiliations
Review

Prenatal and Perinatal Factors Associated with Infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia: A Scoping Review

Arantza Sanvisens et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Objective: Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most frequent childhood cancer. Infant ALL (<1 year) is rare, but it captures a lot of interest due to its poor prognosis, especially in patients harbouring KMT2A rearrangements, which have been demonstrated to arise prenatally. However, epidemiological studies aimed at identifying specific risk factors in such cases are scarce, mainly due to sample-size limitations. We conducted a scoping review to elucidate the prenatal or perinatal factors associated with infant ALL.

Methods: Original articles, letters, or conference abstracts published up to June 2022 were identified using the PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases, and 33 observational studies were selected.

Results: The study reveals several well-established associations across the literature, such as maternal exposure to pesticides and high birth weight, and outlines suggestive associations, such as parental heavy smoking, parental use of several medications (e.g., dipyrone), and maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy.

Conclusions: This scoping review summarizes the few observational studies that have analysed the prenatal and perinatal risk factors for ALL in infants diagnosed before the age of 1 year. The results of this review highlight the lack of research into this specific age group, which merits further research.

Keywords: acute lymphoblastic leukaemia; infant; parental exposure; prenatal exposure; risk factor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the study selection process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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