title: Month-of-birth and incidence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children.
abstract: As a means of examining the virus-relatedness of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children, we investigated the association between month-of-birth and the occurrence of ALL in 1487 children aged 0-15 years at the time of diagnosis. Our hypothesis being that evidence of seasonal variation in births of ALL cases would suggest exposure to a transmissible etiologic agent during the perinatal period. The data were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program and consisted of children diagnosed during the years 1973-1986. Aggregate monthly incidence rates of ALL stratified by month-of-birth, for each SEER site, all sites combined, and for broad geographic regions were calculated. No evidence for an association between month-of-birth and childhood ALL was found.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas, School of Public Health, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Meltzer
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Annegers
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Spitz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D017668:Age of Onset; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012042:Registries; D012621:Seasons