Risk of birth abnormalities in the offspring of men with a history of cancer: A cohort study using danish and swedish national registries

Abstract

Background: The potential mutagenic effects of cancer therapies and the growing number of young male cancer survivors have given rise to concern about the health of their offspring. Methods: We identified all singleton children born alive in Denmark between 1994 and 2004 and in Sweden between 1994 and 2005 (n = 1777765). Of the 8670 children with a paternal history of cancer, 8162 were conceived naturally and 508 were conceived using assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) (in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmatic sperm injection). Of the 17690795 children without a paternal history of cancer, 25926 were conceived using ARTs. Associations between paternal history of cancer and risk of adverse birth outcomes of children conceived naturally or by ARTs were investigated using log-linear binomial models, yielding risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: The offspring of male cancer survivors were more likely to have major congenital abnormalities than the offspring of fathers with no history of cancer (RR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.05 to 1.31, P =. 0043, 3.7% vs 3.2%). However, the mode of conception (natural conception or ARTs) did not modify the association between paternal history of cancer and risk of congenital abnormalities (natural conception, RR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.04 to 1.31; ARTs, RR = 1.22, 95% CI = 0.80 to 1.87, Pinteraction =. 84). ConclusionWe observed a statistically significant but modest increase in the risk of major congenital abnormalities among offspring of males with a history of cancer, independent of the mode of conception. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press.2011This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press.