CHILDHOOD-CANCER AND PARENTAL USE OF TOBACCO - DEATHS FROM 1971 TO 1976

Parental smoking data have been reabstracted from the interview record s of the Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancers (deaths from 1971 to 1976) . Reported smoking habits for the parents of 2587 children who died wi th cancer were compared with similar information for the parents of 25 87 healthy controls (matched pairs analysis). Maternal daily consumpti on of cigarettes and paternal use of pipes or cigars were unimportant, but there was a statistically significant positive trend between pate rnal daily consumption of cigarettes and the risk of childhood cancer (P < 0.001). This association could not be explained by maternal smoki ng, social class, parental ages at the birth of the survey child, sibs hip position or obstetric radiography. Relations between maternal cons umption of cigarettes and birth weights suggested that (maternal) smok ing data were equally reliable for case and control subjects. About 14 % of all childhood cancers in this series could be attributable to pat ernal smoking. These data were combined with smoking data from two pre viously published reports from the Oxford Survey (deaths from 1953 to 1955, deaths from 1977 to 1981) to obtain further information on risks for different types of cancer and different ages at onset of disease. Paternal cigarette smoking emerged as a potential risk factor both fo r the generality of childhood cancer and for all ages at onset.