The association between breastfeeding and the development of childhood leukemia in the Sultanate of Oman
Author
Al-Mukhaini, Yahya Khamis Hamed.
English abstract
Recent case-control studies on breastfeeding and childhood leukemia risk indicated that long duration (>6 months) is associated with a decrease risk of the disease. Most of these studies have been conducted in the West and the matched controls were not selected from the same family relatives of the studied cases and therefore do not consider other socioeconomic and genetic causes of leukemia. We decided to conduct a case-control study to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and childhood leukemia risk in Oman where breastfeeding is culturally favoured for a longer period of time (up to 24 months). All of the recently diagnosed as well as registered cases (during 1999-2009) at the national registry were screened and a total number of 70 cases were recruited for this study. For each case, a matched control for age and sex was selected from family relatives of the cases family siblings. The ratio of cases to controls was 1:1. The data revealed that 21% of the cases and 12% of the matched controls were breastfed for an average duration of 6-12 months. Whereas, 75% of the cases and 81% of the controls had longer periods (12-24 months) of breastfeeding. Only 4% of the cases and 7% of controls were breastfed for a period of >24 months with respect to the duration of breastfeeding and risk of leukemia, the difference between cases and controls group was statistically non significant (x2= 3.816)/ P>0.05). The study indicates that duration of breastfeeding is not associated with childhood leukemia risk and other environmental and genetic factors might be responsible for the disease occurrence in Oman.
