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SCIENTISTS have uncovered a link between childhood
brain cancer and exposure to measles or flu at the time of birth.
Children in areas where measles was common when
they were born had twice the normal risk of developing brain tumours,
researchers said last night.
Exposure to the influenza virus appeared to triple
the risk.
The preliminary study has suggested avoiding
exposure to measles and flu in the community could reduce the rate of
childhood cancer.
Such findings are expected to fuel the arguments in
favour of childhood immunisation, particularly the use of the
controversial MMR vaccine.
The take-up rate has plummeted to
82.5pc in Wales promoting fears among doctors of an
imminent and potentially deadly measles outbreak.
Scientists working with Cancer Re-search UK
reported the first evidence that childhood brain cancers might be caused
by infection earlier this year but this is the first study to link these
tumours to specific infections.
Lead researcher Professor Louise Parker said,
"There's increasing interest in the possibility that exposure to
infections very early in life might contribute to the incidence of
children's brain cancer and our study is certainly consistent with that
possibility.
"It's difficult to produce strong evidence on the
causes of childhood brain cancer because the disease is rare and even
when you look at large numbers of children, in our case 100,000, the
number of cancers will be quite small.
"But our results do suggest that measles and flu
could be associated with increased risk of the disease, and therefore
that avoiding these infections might be one way of reducing cancer
rates."
The Newcastle-based scientists examined all birth
records in Cumbria from 1975 to 1992 - a total of 100,000 children - and
assessed exposure levels to a number of infections, by counting the
number of cases and deaths that occurred each month, in each district.
Exposure levels were measured before birth, in the
three months around and immediately after birth, and over a subsequent
period of three months.
The risk of developing brain cancer before the age
of 14 more than doubled with high exposure to measles around the time of
birth and more than tripled with exposure to the flu virus over the same
period, the study found.
Some 300 children, most under the age of six,
develop brain tumours every year in the UK. Two thirds of them are
successfully treated.
Sir Paul Nurse, chief executive of Cancer Research
UK, said, "It's important that we get to the bottom of the causes of
childhood brain cancer, as this may help us to find new ways of
preventing and treating the disease."
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