Birth Characteristics of Children Dying of Malignant Neoplasms2

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Through review of certificates of death and birth, we have identified 4,198 children who were born between 1947 and 1954 in any of the New England or Middle Atlantic States and who died at some time between 1947 and 1958 of malignant disease. Data from the birth certificates of these children have been compared with similar data on all live births in the same region during the same years and with data from certificates of a comparison series. Mortality from leukemia was associated both with birth order and with maternal age, risk of death being about 50 percent higher in first than in fifth and later births, and about 40 percent higher in children of women over 40 years of age than in those of women under 20 years of age. These associations were independent. No other form of neoplasm showed a significant association with either maternal age or parity. No association of mortality from leukemia or other neoplasm with birth weight or number of prior stillbirths was found. Twins were not unduly represented in the series. The series contained one instance of a set of twins, both of whom died of leukemia.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: