Photo by Nina Matthews
New research suggests a mother’s birthplace may affect the risk of certain cancers for Hispanic children.
The study showed that children of Hispanic mothers who were not born in the US had lower risks of brain cancers, neuroblastoma, and Wilms tumor, when compared to children of US-born Hispanic mothers and non-Hispanic white mothers born in the US.
However, all Hispanic children, regardless of where their mothers were born, had higher risks of acute leukemias and Hodgkin lymphoma but a lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
Julia E. Heck, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues reported these findings in JAMA Pediatrics.
The researchers used California birth records to identify children born from 1983 through 2011. Information on cancer cases came from California Cancer Registry records from 1988 to 2012.
The team restricted their analysis to children of US-born white, US-born Hispanic, and non-US-born Hispanic mothers. The study included 13,666 cases of children diagnosed with cancer before the age of 6 and 15,513,718 children who served as control subjects.
To assess the hazard ratios (HRs) for various cancers, the researchers used children of non-Hispanic white mothers as a reference (HR=1.00) and compared them to the children of non-US-born Hispanic mothers and US-born Hispanic mothers.
For children of non-US-born Hispanic mothers, the HR was 0.50 for glioma, 0.43 for astrocytoma, 0.47 for neuroblastoma, and 0.70 for Wilms tumor. For children of US-born Hispanic mothers, the HR was 0.71 for glioma, 0.62 for astrocytoma, 0.66 for neuroblastoma, and 0.88 for Wilms tumor.
When compared to non-Hispanic white children, Hispanic children had an increased risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and Hodgkin lymphoma but lower risks of NHL and Burkitt lymphoma.
For children of US-born Hispanic mothers, the HR was 1.20 for ALL, 1.28 for AML, 2.49 for Hodgkin lymphoma, 0.79 for NHL, and 0.69 for Burkitt lymphoma.
For children of non-US-born Hispanic mothers, the HR was 1.06 for ALL, 1.05 for AML, 2.35 for Hodgkin lymphoma, 0.76 for NHL, and 0.73 for Burkitt lymphoma.
The researchers said the differences observed between children of US-born and non-US-born Hispanic mothers may be explained by lifestyle differences and varying environmental exposures.
These factors may explain the differences in cancer incidence between Hispanic children and white children as well, but the differences may also be a result of genetic variation and infection exposures early in life.
