Parental Age at Birth and Risk of Hematological Malignancies in Older Adults

Abstract

The proportion of parents aged ≥35 years at the birth of their child continues to increase, but long-term health consequences for these children are not fully understood. A recent prospective study of 110,999 adult women showed an association between paternal - but not maternal - age at birth and sporadic hematological cancer risk. To further investigate this topic, we examined these associations in women and men in the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-II Nutrition Cohort. Among 138,003 Cancer Prevention Study-II participants, 2,532 incident hematological cancers were identified between 1992 and 2009. Multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were computed by using Cox proportional hazards regression. There was no clear linear trend in the risk of hematological malignancies by either paternal or maternal age. However, there was a strong, positive association with paternal age among participants without siblings. In that group, the hazard ratio for fathers aged ≥35 years compared with <25 years at birth was 1.63 (95% confidence interval: 1.19, 2.23), and a linear dose-response association was suggested (Pspline = 0.002).There were no differences by subtype of hematological cancer. Results of this study support the need for further research to better understand the association between paternal age at birth and hematological malignancies.