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NEUROLOGY 2006;67:1979-1983
© 2006 American Academy of Neurology

Association between number of siblings and nervous system tumors suggests an infectious etiology

Andrea Altieri, DSc, Felipe Castro, MSc, Justo Lorenzo Bermejo, PhD and Kari Hemminki, PhD

From the Division of Molecular Genetic Epidemiology (A.A., F.C., J.L.B., K.H.), German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany; and Center for Family Medicine (K.H.), Karolinska Institute, Huddinge, Sweden.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Andrea Altieri, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ), Division of Molecular Genetic Epidemiology, Im Neuenheimer Feld 580, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany; e-mail: altieri73{at}gmail.com

Objective: To estimate the effect of the number of siblings on the risk of histopathologic subtypes of tumors of the nervous system using large population-based data.

Methods: The Swedish Family-Cancer Database comprises 13,613 diagnoses of nervous system tumors with histopathologic information. We analyzed the data using Poisson regression models taking into account potential confounding effects of age, birth cohort, socioeconomic status, and family history of cancer.

Results: The rate ratios (RR) for having four or more siblings vs none were significantly increased for hemangioblastoma (RR = 1.68), childhood neuroblastoma (RR = 2.01), and ependymoma (RR = 1.83, p trend < 0.01). For age at diagnosis ≤15 years, the RRs for individuals with three or more younger siblings compared to none were 1.34 for astrocytoma, 2.30 for medulloblastoma, 2.61 for ependymoma, 3.71 for meningioma, and 2.13 for neuroblastoma, with significant trends in risk. Non-significant decreased risks were found between the number of older siblings and nervous system tumors.

Conclusions: We provide the first reliable quantification of the effects of number of siblings on the risk of nervous system tumors. Sibship size and number of younger siblings correlate with the incidence of childhood nervous system tumors, suggesting a role of infectious agents in the etiology of the disease.

Additional material related to this article can be found on the Neurology Web site. Go to www.neurology.org and scroll down the Table of Contents for the December 12 issue to find the title link for this article.

The Family-Cancer Database was created by linking registries maintained by Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Cancer Register, and supported by the Deutsche Krebshilfe, the Swedish Cancer Society, and the EU, LSHC-LT-2004-503465.

Disclosure: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Received April 5, 2006. Accepted in final form August 17, 2006.


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December 12 Highlights

Neurology 2006 67: 1908-1909. [Full Text]  





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