title: Fertility treatment and childhood cancer risk: a systematic meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To clarify the association between fertility treatment and the risk for cancer in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Meta-analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  None.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-five cohort and case-control studies involving children born after fertility treatment as the exposure of interest and cancer as the outcome.
  
  
  METHODS
  None.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medline was searched through September 2012 to identify relevant studies. The study-specific estimates for each cancer outcome were combined into a pooled relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) by a meta-analytic approach.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that children born after fertility treatment were at increased risk for all cancers (RR = 1.33; 95% CI, 1.08-1.63) and for hematological cancers (RR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.32-1.91), central nervous system/neural cancers (RR = 1.88; 95% CI, 1.02-3.46), and other solid cancers (RR = 2.19; 95% CI, 1.26-3.80). For specific cancer types, we found increased risks for leukemias (RR = 1.65; 95% CI, 1.35-2.01), neuroblastomas (RR = 4.04; 95% CI, 1.24-13.18), and retinoblastomas (RR = 1.62; 95% CI, 1.12-2.35) associated with fertility treatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of the largest meta-analysis on this topic to date indicate an association between fertility treatment and cancer in offspring. However, our results do not rule out that factors related to underlying subfertility, rather than the procedure itself, are the most important predisposing factors for childhood cancer.
authors.affiliation: Virus, Lifestyle, and Genes, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hargreave
authors.forename: Allan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Toender
authors.forename: Klaus Kaae
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Andersen
authors.forename: Susanne Krüger
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Kjaer
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D006801:Humans; D007246:Infertility / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012307:Risk Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome