Children with Down's syndrome have a higher risk of getting childhood leukaemia, about 20 times higher.
A study from Mexico has looked at children with Down's, and found that children with Down's who are exposed to magnetic fields appear to have a high risk of leukaemia than children with Down's who are not exposed. This would appear to be a similar proportionate increase in risk as suggested by the pooled analyses for children in general. This is just one study, however, and needs replicating elsewhere.
Epidemiology. 2007 Jan;18(1):158-61 Magnetic fields and acute leukemia in children with Down syndrome. Mejia-Arangure JM, Fajardo-Gutierrez A, Perez-Saldivar ML, Gorodezky C, Martinez-Avalos A, Romero-Guzman L, Campo-Martinez MA, Flores-Lujano J, Salamanca-Gomez F, Velasquez-Perez L. Epidemiologia, Clinica, Hospital de Pediatria, Centro Medico Nacional, Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico. [email protected] BACKGROUND: We analyzed effects of exposure to magnetic fields on the expression of acute leukemia in children with Down syndrome (who have a 20-fold higher risk of leukemia). |