CHILDHOOD-CANCER AND PATERNAL EXPOSURE TO IONIZING-RADIATION - A 2ND REPORT FROM THE OXFORD SURVEY OF CHILDHOOD CANCERS

Paternal occupational data already collected as part of the Oxford Sur vey of Childhood Cancers have been reviewed. Information on paternal o ccupational was available for 14,869 children dying from cancer in Eng land, Wales, and Scotland in the period 1953-81 and for an equal numbe r of matched controls. The importance of fathers working, at any time before or after conception of the survey child, in any of the followin g occupations was assessed: radiologists (clinical), surgeons and anes thestists, veterinary surgeons, dental surgeons, nuclear industry work ers, industrial radiographers. There was no indication that preconcept ion employment in any of these occupations was more important than pos tconception employment with regard to the risks of all childhood cance rs or all childhood leukemias. Findings were consistent with neither p aternal preconception exposure to external ionizing radiation nor expo sure to unsealed sources of radionuclides being an important risk fact or for childhood leukemia or for the overall grouping of all childhood cancers. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.