Journal
RADIATION PROTECTION DOSIMETRY
Volume 132, Issue 2, Pages 267-272Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/rpd/ncn263
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- United Kingdom government's Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Three hypotheses have proposed the involvement of infections in the aetiology of childhood leukaemia, suggesting either a specific leukaemogenic infection or a series of common infections that lead to a dysregulation of the immune system. Much of the evidence for the link with infections has been based on epidemiological observations, often using proxy measures of infection. Proxy measures include population mixing, parental occupation, age distribution of incidence, spatial and space-time clustering of cases, birth order and day care during infancy. This paper discusses the proxies used and examines to what extent a commonly used proxy measure, birth order, is a fair representation of either specific infections or general infectious load. It is clear that although leukaemia, and other diseases, may be linked with infections, one needs to (1) measure specific and general infections with more accuracy and (2) understand how proxy measures relate to real infections in the population.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available