Mom's "mono" virus ups risk of leukemia in child

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study provides more evidence that reactivation during pregnancy of Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, may be associated with a proportion of childhood leukemia cases. What that proportion may be has yet to be defined, researchers say.

In 2003, Dr. Matti Lehtinen from National Public Health Institute, Oulu, Finland and colleagues identified a link between maternal EBV reactivation and the development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in offspring.

In that study -- based on data from 550,000 Finnish and Icelandic mothers and their offspring -- the presence of EBV antibodies suggesting reactivation of the virus were associated with a 2.9 adjusted odds ratio for ALL.

To confirm EBV's role in ALL, they analyzed first-trimester serum samples of mothers whose offspring later developed leukemia for different EBV antibodies that are known indicators of EBV reactivation. Altogether, they analyzed sera from mothers of 304 ALL cases and 39 non-ALL leukemia cases and 943 mothers of controls.

"We found some further confirmation to our (earlier) findings, suggesting an association between maternal EBV infection and risk of leukemia in the offspring, especially infants < 1 year of age," Lehtinen told Reuters Health.

"We are preparing for a four times larger study, which should verify or falsify our observations," Lehtinen told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology January 15, 2007.