Common Household Pesticides Linked To Childhood Cancer Cases In Washington Area

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090728102306.htm

ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2009) — A new study by researchers at the Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center finds a higher level of common household pesticides in the urine of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a cancer that develops most commonly between three and seven years of age. The findings are published in the August issue of the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring.

Researchers caution that these findings should not be seen as cause-and-effect, only that the study suggests an association between pesticide exposure and development of childhood ALL.

"In our study, we compared urine samples from children with ALL and their mothers with healthy children and their moms. We found elevated levels of common household pesticides more often in the mother-child pairs affected by cancer," says the study's lead investigator, Offie Soldin, PhD, an epidemiologist at Lombardi. Soldin cautions, "We shouldn't assume that pesticides caused these cancers, but our findings certainly support the need for more robust research in this area."
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"We know pesticides – sprays, strips, or 'bombs,' are found in at least 85 percent of households, but obviously not all the children in these homes develop cancer. What this study suggests is an association between pesticide exposure and the development of childhood ALL, but this isn't a cause-and-effect finding," Soldin explains. "Future research would help us understand the exact role of pesticides in the development of cancer. We hypothesize that pre-natal exposure coupled with genetic susceptibility or an additional environmental insult after birth could be to blame."