The associations between maternal factors during pregnancy and the risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: A meta-analysis.
BACKGROUND
Although genetic and environmental factors are considered to be the main causes of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the associations between maternal factors during pregnancy and the childhood ALL is still unclear.


METHODS
In this study, meta-analysis was used. Medline, PubMed, and Web of Science were searched. The result was assessed based on pooled odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).


RESULTS
The pooled ORs showed that there were associations between childhood ALL and the birth order (The first vs others, OR = 1.08, 95%CI = 1.00-1.16), the education of pregnant woman (>high school vs ≤ high school, OR = 0.82, 95%CI = 0.77-0.86), smoking (Ever vs never, OR = 1.10, 95%CI = 1.02-1.19).


CONCLUSIONS
Our meta-analysis showed that there were important associations between childhood ALL and the birth order, the education of pregnant woman, smoking.
Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Kangkang
K
Yan
Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Xuejing
X
Xu
Key Laboratory of Radiobiology (Ministry of Health), School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Xiaodong
X
Liu
Department of Statistics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Xikui
X
Wang
The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Shucheng
S
Hua
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Chunpeng
C
Wang
Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
Xin
X
Liu
D001722:Birth Order; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000209:etiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011379:Prognosis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*
acute lymphoblastic leukemia; childhood; maternal factors; meta-analysis; pregnancy